Milk, money, and gender: Exploring the link between women's decision‐making in dairy production and welfare investments in boys versus girls

Greater women's bargaining power and decision‐making within a household have been shown to increase investments in human capital. This study links women's participation in decision‐making in dairy production with household investment in girls and boys in health, nutrition, and education. We survey households in the urbanizing region of Bangalore, India. We utilize a multinomial treatment effects model to analyze the individual and household factors that are associated with women's participation in sole or joint decision‐making. We then assess how the type of decision‐making influences a household's investments. The results first show that female decision‐making households are more disadvantaged on average than other types of decision‐making households. Second, we observe that female decision‐makers for dairy production are more likely to have more children and earn a higher income than their husbands. Third, the main findings show that households in which women engage in joint decision‐making have higher levels of investment across all categories for girls. Conversely, investments decrease in education and nutrition for both girls and boys when the wife is the sole decision‐maker. Lastly, investments are enhanced further for girls when households can sell milk at a higher price.