World Development, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp.

543-553, 1994
Elsevier Science Ltd
Printed in Great Britain
0305-750x/94 $7.00 + 0.00
0305750X(94)E0027-H

Women’s Income and Boy-Girl Anthropometric Status

in the CGte d’Ivoire

LAWRENCE HADDAD
International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC
and
JOHN HODDINO’IT*
Oxford University

Summary. - This paper examines the effects of the intrahousehold distribution of income on chil-
dren’s anthropometric status in the C&e d’Ivoire. We find that increases in the proportion of cash
income accruing to women increases boys’ height-for-age relative to girls, and that this effect is statisti-
cally significant. We suggest that this result may reflect efficiency and equity concerns which, in this
case, reinforce each other.

1. INTRODUCTION these preferences generates testable restrictions. They

Economic analyses of household behavior in
developing countries typically regard the household
as a collection of individuals who behave as if they are
in agreement on how best to combine time, goods pur-
chased in the market, and goods produced at home, to
produce commodities that maximize some common
welfare index. This model has been extended far
beyond standard demand analysis to include the deter-
minants of education, health, fertility, dhild fostering,
migration, labor supply, home production, land
tenure, and crop adoption. This approach, which we
call the unitary model, is appealing because of the rel-
ative simplicity of comparative statics generated and
the diversity of issues it can address. Moreover, it is
not inconsistent with differences in individual welfare
within a household, even when these differences are
exhibited systematically by some gender, age, or rela-
tion to household head grouping.
In recent years, the plausibility of this approach
has come under attack. Folbre (1984, 1986);
Chiappori (1992); Chiappori et al. (1993); Haddad,
Hoddinott, and Pefia (1992); and McElroy (1992)
have noted that the unitary approach suffers from two
major weaknesses: (a) its theoretical foundations are
restrictive; and (b) it has been empirically refuted in a
number of settings. These authors argue that a better
approach is to regard the household as a collective
entity. That is, households contain individuals with
differing preference orderings, and the aggregation of
also note that the weakness of the unitary model is not
merely academic; important policy recommendations
follow from the particular model chosen. One of the
most important implications derived from the tradi-
tional approach and falsified by empirical observation
is that of income pooling by household members
(Chiappori, 1992; Thomas, 1990, 1992).’ The belief
that household welfare outcomes are affected by the
identity of the income earner forms the basis of many
programs and projects aimed at women’s access to
credit and women’s income generation.
This paper extends the collective approach to the
*We would like to thank, without implicating in the final
product, Harold Alderman, Simon Appleton, David Bevan,
Howarth Bouis, Paul Collier, Barbara Herz, Shahid
Khandker, Regis Mahieu, Martin Ravallion, David Sahn,
Duncan Thomas, an anonymous referee and seminar partic-
ipants at Harvard, the International Centre for Research on
Women, IPPRI, Nottingham, Oxford, Pennsylvania,
Princeton, the School of Oriental and African Studies -
University of London, Toronto, York, and the World Bank,
for comments on earlier drafts. Previous versions of this
paper appeared as part of Discussion Paper No. 155,
Research Program in Development Studies, Woodrow
Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton
University, and as part of the study, Public Services and
Household Allocation in Africa: Does Gender Matter?,
funded by the Women in Development Division, the World
Bank. All errors and opinions in this paper are those of the
authors. Final revision accepted: November 11, 1993.

543
544 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
analysis of children's health. Specifically, we use a
noncooperative bargaining model to examine the
impact of the intrahousehold distribution of income on
the anthropometric status of boys relative to girls in
the Crte d'Ivoire. In other words, does an increasing
female income share, ceteris paribus, favor boys more
than girls in terms of nutrition outcomes? Our work is
distinguished from previous studies of this topic in
two ways. First, unlike studies such as Garcia (1990),
von Braun (1988), Engle (forthcoming), we pay care-
ful attention to endogeneity problems in estimating
our model. Second, the study closest in spirit to ours is
Thomas's (1990) examination of the impact of mater-
nal unearned income on child health in Brazil. Though
Thomas's results are highly plausible, they may also
be capturing unobserved productivity differences in
terms of child care (Behrman, 1989, p. 72). We use
fixed effects estimation to control for this possibility.
The paper begins with a discussion of the collec-
tive approach to household modeling and outlines the
noncooperative we use to motivate our results. We
briefly outline our data sources and review potentially
serious econometric problems, before discussing our
results. We find that increases in the proportion of
cash income accruing to women in the Crte d'Ivoire
increases boys' height-for-age relative to girls.
2. APPLYING COLLECTIVE MODELS TO
CHILD ANTHROPOMETRIC STATUS
Collective models take as given the individuality
of household members. In the existing literature, there
are two broad types of collective model: cooperative
and noncooperative.
In the cooperative approach individuals have a
choice of remaining single or of forming a household.
They choose the latter option when the utility levels
associated with being married outweigh the utility
derived from being single: For example, there may be
economies of scale associated with the production of
certain household goods, or there may be some goods
that can be produced and shared by married couples
but not single individuals. Household formation may
generate intangible benefits such as "love" or "com-
panionship." In any case, the existence of the house-
hold generates a surplus, which will be distributed
across the members; of course, the rule governing this
distribution is a central issue of the analysis.
Starting from this common framework, two sub-
classes of models have emerged. Models of the first
category, such as Chiappori (1992) only suppose that
household decisions are always efficient in the usual
Pareto sense. In particular, nothing is assumed a priori
upon the nature of the decision process, or, equiva-
lently, upon the location of the final outcome on the
household Pareto frontier. This does not mean that the
rule of repartition governing intrahousehold alloca-
tion is nonessential, but rather that it has to be esti-
mated from the data rather than postulated a priori,
This more general viewpoint is especially convenient
for assessing the relative relevance of the competing
frameworks. In particular, an important finding is
that the efficiency hypothesis is sufficient to
generate strong testable restrictions upon household
behavior.
Models of the second subclass go one step further,
by representing household decisions as the outcome of
some bargaining process, and applying to this frame-
work the tools of cooperative game theory. Then the
division of the gains from marriage can be modeled as
a function of the "fallback," or "threat point" position
of each member; itself a function of extraenvironmen-
tal parameters (EEPs). These include sex ratios in
marriage markets, laws concerning alimony and child
support, changes in tax status associated with different
marital states, and in developing countries, the ability
of women to return to their natal homes and prohibi-
tions on women working outside the home (McElroy,
1990 and 1992).
The noncooperative approach (Ulph, 1988;
Woolley, 1988; Kanbur, 1991; Katz, 1992; Lundberg
and Pollak, 1992) relies on the assumption that indi-
viduals cannot enter into binding and enforceable con-
tracts with each other. Instead, individuals' actions are
conditional on the actions of others. For example, in
Katz's' Reciprocal Claims' model, the household is
"depicted as a site of largely separate gender-specific
economies linked by reciprocal claims on members'
income, land, goods, and labor." A wife's budget is
delinked from her husbands'; wives respond to
changes in their husbands' allocation of his labor
solely according to their own needs.
In this paper, we use Ulph's noncooperative model
to motivate our results. Our approach is partly condi-
tioned by the data available to us - - there are no vari-
ables that can serve as EEPs; and the approach out-
lined by Chiappori is not feasible because it requires
that some goods be assignable (in the sense that they
are exclusively consumed by one person), and child
health does not qualify as such a good. The attraction
of the model we use here is that it predicts that varying
the share of household income earned by individual
members will lead to changes in the demand for goods
by the household. Below, we provide a brief summary
of the Ulph model. A full discussion can be found in
Ulph (1988) and Hoddinott and Haddad (1992).
Ulph assumes that there exists a multimember
household in which decisions regarding expenditures
are made by two adult members, rn andf. At least two
goods are purchased, and m and f a r e assumed to dis-
agree over the ordering of preferences over, at least, a
subset of these goods. Denoting x: as a vector of pur-
chases made f r o m f s income, Xm as those made from
m's income, y: and y,, as income earned b y f a n d m,
respectively, and p the associated vector of prices for
 WOMEN'S INCOME AND BOY-GIRL ANTHROPOMETRIC STATUS
each commodity, Ulph derives the following
demand/reaction functions:
x~= R~(xm,p, y~) (1)
and
xm= Rm (xf, p, ym). (2)
The Nash equilibrium is the pair of xi and x,, that
satisfy (1) and (2) simultaneously. In general, demand
for these goods will depend upon p, Ym, and YI' Ulph
provides three results which are relevant to the discus-
sion here. First, suppose that income in the household
is heavily skewed toward one person. It is possible to
show that that person's preferred allocation of total
household income can be sustained as a Nash equilib-
rium; the proof is given by Ulph (1988, pp. 14-16).
Second, Ulph argues that as the income share of one
member rises across the zero to one range, the share of
household expenditures on the set of commodities
preferred by that individual will rise; the share of
expenditures on the set of commodities preferred by
the other member will fall, and the share of the
"agreed upon" goods will depend on which individual
has the strongest relative dislike for the other's pre-
ferred good. Third, if members disagree over the pref-
erence ordering of some goods, this theory suggests
they have a strong incentive to make some "strategic
purchases" in order to precommit the household to a
minimum expenditure on these items. This accords
with the anthropological literature 3 which argues that
women earn cash incomes in order to ensure that cer-
tain items are purchased. Finally, the model is also
consistent with Sen's (1985 ) argument that the ability
of individual members to enforce their preference
orderings is a function of their "perceived contribu-
tion" to the household. The distribution of income
within the household is often highly visible.
In combination with this noncooperative model, it
is helpful to consider what underlies the preferences
of individual adult household members with respect to
the allocation of household resources among off-
spring. A useful point of departure is Behrman,
Pollak, and Taubman's (1982) general preference
model. They argue that a parent's decision regarding
the allocation of household resources is guided by two
concerns. On the one hand, a mother or father may be
interested in ensuring that all children are equally
well-off. Alternatively, they may have preferences for
particular children; for example, boys over girls, first
born over latter born, their own children over those
whom they are raising as foster children. These can be
termed "equity" concerns though, of course, it is
entirely possible that a parent prefers unequal out-
comes among their offspring. Secondly, parents are
also interested in maximizing the return on their
investment in children. This is a particularly plausible
545
assumption in a developing country context where
they may rely on their offspring for support in the
future. This is termed "efficiency" concerns.
Three cases are readily apparent. Suppose a parent
cares only about equity and has no concerns regarding
efficiency. Such preferences imply that they will seek
to equalize their children's future welfare. Note that
this does not imply that all children will be treated
equally. 4 Consider the case of a parent who wants their
daughter and son to be equally well-off and where this
well-being is a linear function of their lifetime earn-
ings. Suppose the daughter will face discrimination in
the labor market, specifically her wages will be less
than that of her comparably qualified brother doing
the same work. Here, more resources will be devoted
to the daughter in order to equalize future earnings.
Put another way, a parent may compensate the child
with the poorer initial endowment through higher
investment. Conversely, where a mother or father
seeks to maximize the total future welfare of their off-
spring, they invest relatively more in those children
with the best future prospects. In the example consid-
ered here, more human capital would be invested in
the son than in the daughter. That is, parental invest-
ments would "reinforce" existing inequalities in child
endowments. Finally, it is possible to imagine inter-
mediate cases where both equity and efficiency con-
cerns play a role, as in recent work by Pitt,
Rosenzweig, and Hassan (1990).
3. INTRAHOUSEHOLD RESOURCE ALLOCA-
TION: EVIDENCE FROM THE COTE D'IVOIRE
(a) Data and variables
The data used to estimate the determinants of child
anthropometric status are taken from the 1986-87
round of the C6te d'Ivoire Living Standards Survey
(CILSS). Mother-father-preschooler groupings were
located within each household for which there are
parental body measurements. This eliminated chil-
dren from female-headed households as there were no
female-headed households that have a resident father
who has been measured. This decision was taken so as
to include father's height and education in the reduced
form anthropometric equations, though as noted
below, these two paternal variables add little to the
empirical analysis. After selecting households that
contain at least two children, a sample of 559 children
from 212 households remained. 5 The sample was
restricted to children under five years of age as chil-
dren in this age group are generally thought to be at
greatest nutritional risk.
The dependent variables, PCTHA and PCTWL,
represent respectively the percentage of NCHS
median height-for-age and weight-for-height ob-
served on children under 60 months of age. These two
546 WORLD DEVELOPMENT

anthropometric variables represent one type of health
status measure. Undoubtedly, these indicators will be
subject to measurement problems, and reliance on one
set of measurements for a description of health status
is never satisfactory. As the data do not, however, con-
tain other health indicators (apart from self-recorded
morbidity data), a latent-variable approach is infeasi-
ble. Our confidence in the accuracy of these variables
is nonetheless strengthened by the close correspon-
dence between measurements taken two weeks apart
on a subset of individuals. Of the two indicators,
PCTHA is considered a measure of health status in the
long run, while PCTWL is a measure that is much
more sensitive to short-run fluctuations in the levels of
health inputs. 6 Table 1 presents mean values for stan-
dardized heights and weights. This sample of
preschoolers shows relatively good anthropometric
status. There are no dramatic patterns across region or
age group, except the usual decline in measurements
as the child gets older and catch-up growth is not real-
ized.
In the results reported below, the logarithm of the
percentage height-for-age and weight-for-height are
used as dependent variables. As in standard reduced
form models of child health, child specific, parental
and community variables are used as regressors. Table
2 presents summary statistics for these variables. Four
child-age dummies are included in the vector of
explanatory variables, and can be expected to reflect
the age standardizations of the dependent variables
with negative estimated coefficients on the dummies
relative to the omitted dummy variable for those chil-
dren less than six months old. Dummy variables are
also included that reflect the child's gender and rela-
tionship to household head.
Other regressors are included to capture phenotype
(visible characteristics of individual produced by
interaction of genes and environment) and genotype
(individual's genetic composition) endowments.
Following Alderman (1990) and Sahn (1990),
mother' s height is used, partly to reflect genotype, but
also to capture unobserved maternal productivity
effects (as paternal height proved insignificant and
reduced the sample size, it has been dropped from the
results reported here). Parental primary education is
included, in part as a proxy for parental endowments,
and in part to represent a better management of health
inputs in conjunction with community characteristics
and services. 7 Mother's age is included to account for
the fact that very young mothers will tend to have
smaller children, and at high maternal ages, to proxy
for any maternal depletion syndrome that may result
from high parity (although the estimated coefficient
on mother' s age squared was insignificant in all spec-
ifications). A parity variable is not included because it
is a choice variable.
Using Deaton's (1989) "outlay equivalent"
method, Haddad and Hoddinott (forthcoming) found
that Ivorian households tend to devote fewer resources
to nonoffspring of the household head. Using data
from the C6te d'Ivoire, Strauss and Mehra (1990) find
that a child's relationship to the head of the household
is important in determining the extent of child wasting
and stunting, at least in terms of bivariate association.
Whether the wife is the senior wife of the household
head as opposed to a junior wife or a household head
wife, may be an important proxy for intrahousehold
bargaining power, and as such is included in the right-
hand side specification. Note that a wife' s "seniority"
is defined solely in terms of her age. Finally, the log of
per capita expenditures was included to capture total
household resources available for child health. As this

Table 1. Standardized heights and weights for the regression sample, by age group and ecological region

Ecological Zone
East Forest West Forest Savannah All
Standard Standard Standard Standard Sample
Age group Mean deviation Mean deviation Mean deviation Mean deviation size

Percentage height-for-age
< 6 months 101.8 9.4 97.8 6.9 101.6 7.8 100.7 8.3 68
6 < 24 months 98.9 6.1 95.7 5.3 96.7 6.7 97.3 6.3 174
24 < 48 months 98.0 6.7 95.7 7.2 95.3 8.3 96.3 7.6 196
48 < 60 months 97.3 7.5 96.0 6.3 96.3 6.6 96.6 6.8 135
All 98.6 7.2 96.1 6.4 96.6 7.5 97.2 7.2 573
Percentage weight-for-height
< 6 months 102.8 22.4 109.5 16.5 99.1 11.6 103.2 17.8 68
6 < 24 months 91.3 13.3 100.3 13.2 93.1 11.9 94.0 13.0 174
24 < 48 months 99.4 10.9 107.4 12.1 99.7 11.8 101.3 12.0 196
48 < 60 months 99.2 11.9 108.6 14.9 102.9 12.1 102.7 13.0 135
All 97.4 14.2 105.9 14.1 98.4 12.4 99.6 13.8 573

Source: Ainsworth and Munoz (1986).

 WOMEN'S INCOME AND BOY-GIRL ANTHROPOMETRIC STATUS 547

Table 2. Summary statistics of variables used in estimations

Variable Description Mean Standard deviation

Dependent
LPCTHA log of percentage height-for-age 4.57 0.07
LPCTWL log of percentage weight-for-height 4.59 0.14
Child variables
SEX 1-male, 0-female 0.49 0.50
AGE6D 1 if age less than 6 months* 0.11 0.32
AGE624D 1 if 6 -< age in months < 24 0.30 0.46
AGE2448D 1 if 24 _<age in months < 48 0.35 0.48
AGE4854D 1 if48 < age in months < 54 0.07 0.25
AGE54D 1 if age in months _>54 0.17 0.37
KIDHOH 1 if not offspring of household 0.16 0.36
Parental variables
MHT Mother's height (centimeters) 158.88 5.97
MAGEY Mother's age, years 30.20 7.36
SENWHOH 1 if mother oldest household wife 0.53 0.50
DMOMED 1 if mother > 4 years school 0.08 0.27
DDADED 1 if father > 4 years school 0.23 0.42
PFINC female income proportion 0.22 0.30
LPCEXP in of per capita expenditures 11.17 0.65
Community variables
MFDWGE male daily wage/female daily wage 1.20 0.46
DISDOCT distance to nearest doctor, 100 kilometers 0.31 0.24
DISNURS distance to nearest nurse, 100 kilometers 0.11 0.11
DISPSCH distance to nearest primary school 0.00 0.02
DISPHAR distance to nearest pharmacy, 100 kilometers 0.23 0.15
n = 559

*Dummy variables are denoted as "1 if".

could be considered a choice variable, predicted val-
ues were used with the logarithm of the per capita
value of holdings of consumer durables, the number of
rooms per capita in the dwelling, the per capita floor
area of the dwelling, and dummy variables equalling
one if the walls of the dwelling are cement, stone or
brick, and if the floor of the dwelling is cement, stone
or brick, were used as regressors. Variables describing
distances of the cluster (village) to the nearest doctor,
nurse and pharmacy were also included. These vari-
ables were retained in the fixed effects estimations by
interacting them with sex of the preschooler. Finally, a
variable that is the ratio of the "typical" daily agricul-
tural wage rates for adult men and women in the vil-
lage was included to proxy for location-specific gen-
der attitudes, opportunities, and education levels.
The final determinant of child anthropometric sta-
tus is the proportion of cash income accruing to the
spouse(s) of the male head, PFINC. 8 To construct this
variable, we began by summing household cash
income derived from the following sources: sales of
crops; net sales of livestock; wage employment; own
business activities; remittances; and miscellaneous
sources. There was not sufficient detail within the sur-
vey to disaggregate the latter two by gender. It was
possible, however, to calculate income by gender for
the other three sources.
Earnings from wage employment were obtained
from recorded labor market activities. Annualized
reported profits have been used to estimate income
from own business activities. 9 It is assumed that the
person described as "the best informed to discuss the
business" is the business operator and that he/she con-
trois its profits. It should also be noted that the ques-
tionnaire only records the three "most important" own
business activities (Grootaert, 1986). Where other,
more minor enterprises have been omitted, income
from own business activities will be understated.
Disaggregating the data on income from agricul-
ture by gender was particularly difficult because it
was not collected on an individual specific basis.
Because the survey was cluster based, however, the
approximate locations of households is known.
Cluster locations, from Ainsworth and Munoz (1986)
were matched with ethnic groups from Weekes-
Vagliani (1985). Ethnographic data from Weekes-
Vagliani (1985, 1990), Gastellu (1987), and Bassett
(1988) was then used to assign gender control over
cash from the sales of crops by cluster. It should be
noted that the assignment of cash income from crops
548 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
in this manner is not unproblematic. There are
instances where income from crops accrues to men,
but they "pay" their wives for assistance in growing
the crop. Among the Baoule, this is the case for cash
income from yams. Our data set does not provide
information on this. Where ethnic groups are inter-
mingled, ethnic distinctions between households will
not be picked up in the allocation of crops. This is a
particular problem for households growing crops in
urban areas and pastoralists. Further, variations in
crop allocations within ethnic groups cannot be
accounted for.
The respondent for the questions on income from
crops is the individual most familiar with this infor-
mation (Grootaert, 1986). Where this was the male
head, there are undoubtedly cases where he did not
know the extent of production by his spouse(s).
Undoubtedly, there were instances where women hid
income from their husbands. Both possibilities sug-
gest that women's cash income from crops may be
understated. In addition to gender distinctions in con-
trol of crop income, there may also be generational
distinctions. For example, in households headed by
elderly widows, the production of certain cash crops,
and the control of their income, such as coffee or
cocoa, may be the responsibility of adult males. A
conservative approach has been taken with the gender
distinction over crops in households headed by
women being maintained. As the construction of
PFINC embodies a number of strong assumptions, we
examined the robustness of our results by varying the
assumptions used in its construction. These did not
lead to qualitatively different results from those
reported here.
(b) Estimation issues
Before turning to our results, there are two impor-
tant econometric issues that require discussion: the
potential endogeneity of PFINC; and controlling for
unobserved maternal productivity effects.
Existing studies of the impact of intrahousehold
income distribution on anthropometric status treat this
variable as exogenous. PFINC could be considered a
choice variable, however, reflecting female labor sup-
ply decisions. Including it as a regressor, when it is
endogenous, generates biased, and quite possibly mis-
leading paramoter estimates. We address this diffi-
culty by using instrumental variables to obtain pre-
dicted values of PFINC. These instruments include a
dummy variable equalling one if a spouse of the head
(or eldest wife in a polygamous household) has a pri-
mary school certificate, a dummy variable equalling
one if a spouse of the head (or eldest wife in a polyga-
mous household) has a secondary school certificate,
the difference in educational attainment between the
household head and his spouse, the amount of land
operated by adult women in the household, the pro-
portion of household land holdings operated by adult
women in the household, the proportion of household
capital held by adult women, and a selectivity correc-
tion term to account for households where PFINC
equalled zero.
A second potentially serious problem is the influ-
ence of unobserved household effects on the econo-
metric analysis. For example, some households may
reside in areas conducive both to child health and
women's income generation. Failing to control for
such a possibility will again generate biased parameter
estimates. Following Strauss (1990), we address this
by estimating fixed and random household effects
specifications for the two anthropometric indicators.J°
The importance of unobserved household specific
effects was tested against comparable ordinary least
squares (OLS) specifications (OLS with group dum-
mies versus OLS without group dummies), and in
every instance the null hypothesis that the group dum-
mies are jointly insignificant was rejected; that is, the
fixed effects specifications prevailed.11 Hausman-Wu
chi-squared tests consistently rejected the random
effects models over the fixed effects models, indicat-
ing some correlation of the unobservable characteris-
tics with included regressors. Consequently, the unob-
served effects are treated as parameters rather than
random variables, ensuring consistent estimation in
the absence of significant measurement error on LPC-
EXP and PFINC (Bouis and Haddad, 1992).
The drawback to the fixed effects estimation is that
household specific variables are eliminated, but this is
not as serious a problem here as it might be in other
studies. Variables that would not vary within the con-
text of a nuclear household do vary in the extended
Ivorian family. Often there is more than one
preschooler-mother-father unit within a household, as
well as household heads with offspring from two or
more co-resident wives. Hence, variables such as
parental education and mothers' height can vary
across children in a household. In addition, no correc-
tion for selectivity problems arising from the inclusion
of households with at least two preschoolers in the
sample is required because differencing removes
unobserved household selectivity effects. Note that
panel estimation does not permit a direct examination
of the effect of PFINC on preschooler anthropometric
status. (The differencing procedure at the household
level would eliminate this variable.) Consequently,
we have interacted the female income share variable
with preschooler gender. Thus, we can only examine
the gender neutrality of PFINC - - does it have a dif-
ferential impact on boys and girls?
(c) Discussion of results
Estimates for two different specifications (with
 WOMEN'S INCOME AND BOY-GIRL ANTHROPOMETRIC STATUS 549

Table 3. Within-household fixed-effects estimates for the log of preschooler height-for-age and weight-for-height

Height-for-Age Weight-for-Age
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Variable* Estimate t Estimate t Estimate t Estimate t

AGE624D -0.0364 2.88I" -0.0394 3.12¢ 4).0823 3.93t -0.0795 3.76t

AGE2448D 4).0441 3.73¢ 4).0444 3.76t -0.0184 0.94 -0.0174 0.88
AGE4854D 4).0399 2.33t 4).0368 2.14t 0.0311 1.09 0.0310 1.08
AGE54D -0.0375 2.841- -0.0408 3.07t 4).0036 0.16 4).0007 0.03
SEX 4).1536 0.71 -0.0782 0.35 4).2177 0.61 -0.2239 0.59
MHT 0.0006 0.53 0.0008 0.63 0.0020 0.98 0.0019 0.95
MAGEY 0.0002 0.22 4).0000 0.03 -0.0033 1.91:~ -0.0031 1.81:~
DMOMED 0.0184 0.65 0.0188 0.66 4).0807 1.72:~ -0.0889 1.87:~
DDADED 0.0023 0.06 -0.0106 0.28 -0.0393 0.62 4).0379 0.59
KIDHOH 0.0044 0.24 0.0051 0.28 -0.0315 1.04 -0.0281 0.91
SENWHOH 0.0153 1.22 0.0180 1.44 0.0206 1.00 0.0181 0.87
PHNC x SEX 0.0440 2.01t 0.0476 1.96t 0.0333 0.91 0.0138 0.34
LPCEXP × SEX -0.0125 1.23 4).0129 1.24 -0.0200 1.19 -0.0190 1.09
MHT x SEX 0.0019 1.59 0.0016 1.31 0.0023 1.14 0.0022 1.08
MAGEY x SEX -0.0008 0.78 -0.0007 0.72 0.0026 1.61 0.0024 1.48
MFDWGE x SEX -0.0225 1.10 0.0053 0.16
DISDOCT x SEX 0.0770 1.95t- 0.0352 0.53
DISNURS x SEX 4).1370 1.81:~ 0.1390 1.10
DISPSCH x SEX 0.9711 1.80:~ 0.2929 0.32
DISPHAR x SEX 4).0373 0.63 4).0773 0.78
R2 0.534 0.546 0.641 0.644
Adj. R2 0.216 0.225 0.396 0.393

*PFINC is treated as endogenous. Results from the first-stage prediction of PHNC are available on request.
tSignificant at 5% level.
:~Significant at 10% level.

and without community variables) for height-for-age
and weight-for-height are presented in Table 3.
Tests of models (1) against (2) and (3) against (4)
failed to reject the restricted models - - introducing
the community effects through the sex of the child
does not add to the model. The make-up of variables
representing the interactions of the sex of preschooler
dummies and the distance variables (for example,
DISDOCT x SEX) was varied because of multi-
collinearity worries, but this did not alter the pattern or
lack of strength of the results. It appears that in the
C6te d'Ivoire, and for the measures of community
infrastructure used here, improvements in access to
public services are gender neutral in their effects on
child health.
The gender of income earner, however, does affect
preschooler anthropometric outcomes. The estimated
coefficient on the interaction of PFINC and gender is
positive and significant for height-for-age (t = 2.01,
specification 1, and t = 1.96, specification 2), while
the effect is insignificant for weight-for-height. At the
5% level, the null hypothesis, that the effect of
increasing PFINC is gender neutral, is rejected. Boys
do relatively better in terms of height-for-age as a
result of increasing female income shares. This does
not mean boys do better, and girls worse, as P H N C
rises. Rather, these results show that the improve-
ments to boys' health are greater relative to the
improvement in girls' health brought about by
increasing women' s share of household cash income.
This result is explicable in terms of the models of
intrahousehold resource allocation discussed earlier.
We begin with equity considerations. Data from other
sources indicate that Ivorian boys have a poorer health
endowment than girls. Svedberg (1990), using Ivorian
data from the World Fertility Survey, shows there is
an excess mortality of boys relative to girls among
infants (aged less than one year) and toddlers (aged
1-4 years). Appleton (1991) finds that in rural C6te
d'Ivoire, the predicted probability of illness is higher
in boys than in girls. Among very young children, the
difference initially widens, then closes with girls over
13 more likely to be ill. (His results from rural Kenya
show a similar pattern.) Table 4 summarizes
Appleton's results. 12 The poorer health endowments
of boys may reflect biological factors. Svedberg
(1990) reports that boys have greater immaturity of
lungs at birth and this makes them more susceptible to
respiratory illnesses such as pneumonia. Waldron
(1987, p. 194) notes that male infants have "inherently
550 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
Table 4. Predicted percentage probability of falling ill in last four weeks among rural Ivorian children
Age Boys Girls
(i~ercentage)
0 30.7 26.7
1 29.3 24.4
2 28.0 22.4
3 26.7 20.7
4 25.5 19.3
5 24.2 18.1
6 23.1 17.1
7 21.9 16.3
Source: Appleton (1991).
lower levels of certain components of immune resis-
tance, and this may contribute to a higher mortality
risk of some types of infectious disease" (see also
Waldron, 1983). She also suggests that, in some coun-
tries, intestinal infections and diseases of the respira-
tory system may be responsible for the higher excess
mortality rates amongst boys aged 1-4. Suppose
women desired an equitable distribution of health
among all children. Given the unequal health endow-
ments of boys and girls (and assuming that adult
women are aware of them), if they wish to reduce
health inequalities amongst their children, they should
favor boys relative to girls. This explanation is consis-
tent with the fixed effects results presented here.
Now consider "efficiency" aspects of this result. It
could be argued that women favor girls relative to
boys because daughters help with domestic tasks
(whereas boys are preferred by fathers because they
help with "male" tasks such as herding cattle). This
does not appear to be the case as the opposite result is
obtained - - increasing women's income has a larger
impact on boys' height-for-age. Alternatively, it could
be that mothers are responding to male-female differ-
ences in future earnings. But this effect should be cap-
tured by the ratio of male and female daily wages
interacted with the child's gender (MFDWGE x
SEX). As Table 3 shows, this variable appears to have
little impact on anthropometric status. One possible
efficiency consideration, however, may relate to the
importance of sons as old age security. Hoddinott
(1993) found that in western Kenya, widows received
80% of transfers of goods and money and 60% of
assistance with household tasks from sons, daughters-
in-law, and children of male sons. Though comparable
data for Crte d'Ivoire are not available, it is possible
that sons are also important for the provision of assis-
tance to elderly women. Deaton and Paxson (1990)
report that 30% of Ivorian women aged 60-64 live
with at least one of their offspring, a figure rising to
60% for women aged 70 or older. As rural Crte
d'Ivoire is predominantly virilocal, it is reasonable to
assume that these offspring are predominantly male.
Age Boys Girls
8 20.8 15.8
9 19.7 15.3
10 18.6 15.1
11 17.6 15.0
12 16.6 15.1
13 15.7 15.3
14 14.8 15.7
15 13.9 16.3
Hence, the need for assistance in old age encourages
women to skew relatively more resources under their
control toward male offspring. This efficiency consid-
eration reinforces the equity concerns noted above.
4. CONCLUDING NOTES
In this paper, we have applied a collective model of
household behavior to the determination of child
anthropometric status. We find that increases in the
proportion of cash income accruing to women
increases boys' height-for-age relative to girls, and
that this effect is statistically significant. We suggest
that this result may reflect efficiency and equity con-
cerns which, in this case, reinforce each other.
It could be argued that our results are consistent
with unitary models of household behavior (the
household acts "as i f ' there were one decision maker).
Suppose that different income flows are associated
with different purchasing productivities. If women are
working as traders in the market place, the household
may economize on transaction costs if women pur-
chase food in the market and men use their income to
purchase other goods. There are, however, three diffi-
culties with this view. First, if these unobserved pur-
chasing productivities are household level effects,
then they have been accounted for by fixed effects
estimation. Second, it is difficult, except in some ad
hoc, expost fashion, to reconcile unitary models with
any gender-specific impact women's share of income
may have on preschooler nutrition outcomes. Finally,
because of the large body of anthropological data on
the nonpooling of income within Ivorian households
(Weekes-Vagliani, 1990) we stress the congruence
between our empirical results and the predictions of
the noncooperative model used here.
A final comment concerns the policy implications
of these results. In the introduction to this paper, we
noted that the belief that household welfare outcomes
are affected by the identity of the income earner forms
the basis of many gender specific programs and pro-
 WOMEN'S INCOME AND BOY-GIRL ANTHROPOMETRIC STATUS
jects. Our findings suggest that changes in welfare
brought about by increasing female share o f house-
hold i n c o m e may not be gender neutral. It would
NOTES
1. The selection and testing of a host of competing intra-
household resource allocation models, however, remains
problematic and controversial.
2. Early examples of this approach include Manser and
Brown (1980) and McElroy and Homey (1981). McElroy
(1992) provides a general review.of work in this area.
3. These include Guyer (1980), Folbre (1986), Blumberg
(1987), Guyer and Peters (1987), Bruce (1989) and Engle
(forthcoming).
4. The decision of parents to equalize outcomes, as
opposed to inputs, receives further attention in Engle (1990)
and Curry and Tiefenthaler (1993).
5. Preschoolers from two sample clusters were removed
from the regression sample due to incomplete information on
daily wage rates. It is not obvious whether there are any
selectivity problems because of these omitted clusters.
6. For a comparison of these indicators with those in
other studies, see Haddad and Hoddinott (1991).
7. Another means of controlling for maternal characteris-
tics is to estimate a mother fixed-effects model (Strauss,
1990), where only mothers with more than one child are
included in the sample. Some selectivity problems, however,
may be encountered (younger mothers with just one child
which happens to be a preschooler and older mothers with
just one child yet to emerge from the preschooler age range
are excluded) and the sample size is reduced considerably,
from 559 to 323.
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