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Income Under Female Versus Male Control

Hypotheses from a Theory of Gender Stratification and Data from the Third World

University of California, San Diego

This article presents a summary of Blumberg's general theory of gender stratification, which emphasizes relative male/female control of economic resources as a main (although not sole) predictor of a broad array of gender stratification consequences. It also reviews evidence from numerous Third World countries that men and women spend income under their control differently—with women holding back less for themselves and spending more on child nutrition and family "basic human needs." Thus the data indicate that when women lose control of income, what is affected is not only their relative marital/familial power (and self-esteem) but also family well-being. Moreover, evidence is presented that planned Third World development projects that rely on female labor but don't provide women with a return to that labor also are likely to suffer: Women will attempt to reallocate their efforts to tasks yielding income under their own control. In Africa, where women raise most locally marketed/consumed food and usually have specific familial obligations that require them to have independently controlled income, the bypassing of women farmers and undercutting their returns may be an important—albeit unheralded—factor in the region's food crisis. In sum, the Third World data support both the theory of gender stratification and the "relative resources" approach to marital power, and point the way to broadening the U.S. marital/family power debate to include male/female spending patterns.

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