Incomes, employment and gender roles: understanding women's intrahousehold decision-making participation in Nicaragua

Purpose – This paper explores the relationship between married women's intrahousehold decision-making participation and marital gender roles, next to factors suggested in the household bargaining literature. Additionally, the authors investigate whether women's employment carries the same importance for decision-making participation as contributions to household incomes. Design/methodology/approach – Using 2011/2012 Nicaraguan Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), the authors estimate multinomial logistic regressions for eight decision-making domains, analyzing three levels of decision-making: wife-dominant or sole decisions, joint decision-making (with the partner) and decision-making by someone else. The authors create an additive index for measuring internalized marital gender roles. Findings – Women's intrahousehold decision-making participation is explained differently depending on the decision-making area and level of participation. Women with a better relative position vis-à-vis partners and not following patriarchal gender roles are more likely to make decisions jointly with their partners, but not alone. Women's age and educational level are the strongest predictors in the analysis. Women's employment reduces their decision-making participation in children's disciplining and daily cooking-related decisions. Research limitations/implications – It focuses on married women only, while marital status might be a determinant of decision-making itself and left out the contribution of unearned incomes. Practical implications – Interventions aimed at increasing women's intrahousehold decision-making participation should not only focus on economic endowments but also comprehend the gendered dynamics governing intrahousehold allocation. Originality/value – The study incorporates quantitative measures of marital gender roles in the study of intrahousehold decision-making. It also contributes to the literature with insights from contexts where women's involvement in employment increased against a background of patriarchal gender roles.