Female Empowerment and School Achievement: A Closer Look at Women’s Bargaining Power, Household Expenditure and Educational Performance

Carla Pederzini, Universidad Iberoamericana
Ariadna Vargas, Universidad Iberoamericana

Using the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) a multi-thematic and longitudinal database which collects a wide range of information on socioeconomic, demographic and health indicators, we test the relationship between women’s bargaining power and children’s schooling not only by including women’s income and schooling factors but also by bringing in the decisions made inside the household in order to have a complete measure of women’s power. Additionally, we corroborate the hypothesis that higher expenditures on education actually translates into better schooling performance. We analyze the relationship between the variable that measures wife’s perception of her participation on children’s education decision making and the expenditure share on education. We investigate whether the decisions on children’s education expenditures reflect women empowerment. Using data on child’s educational performance (years of schooling, school assistance, hours per week of study and expectations) we analyze the alleged positive significant relationship between education’s expenditure and outcomes.