Households in Tanzania have gained access to mobile money services that provide safe storage of funds, secured payment systems, and low-cost access to long-distance remittances. I investigate the impacts of adopting mobile money during the technology rollout on the relative consumption shares of goods within a household, focusing on the decision-making dynamics of household members. While the privacy, security and accessibility of mobile money is thought to increase women’s agency over household expenditures, I find little evidence that women are better able to consume aligned with their preferences in a difference-in-difference fixed effects specification. Furthermore, in male-headed households I find mobile money causes a decrease in food-within-the-home expenditure shares and an increase in food-outside- the-home expenditure shares- an outcome more aligned with male-preferences in the related literature. These results suggest adoption of mobile money alone may not be sufficient to raise women’s empowerment over household resources, and that more targeted initiatives leveraging mobile money services may be required to do so.
Paper available upon request.
I inspect how receiving in-home water connectivity impacts outcomes for women in rural India. The Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) was a flagship program of the Indian government launched in 2019 to provide tap water connections to every rural household by 2024. The mission aimed to ensure that every rural household had access to clean, safe drinking water in adequate quantity and quality on a regular and long-term basis, improving the quality of life in rural communities - especially women who spent on average 2.5 hours daily fetching water. As of September 2024, the mission had installed over 150 million of the needed 190 million tap connections, a significant increase from the 3 million connections in 2019. I use time use data from 2019-2024 to investigate how women in treated areas now spend their time, and the economic and cultural impacts.
Paper available upon request.