Children's say in the household

Abstract

Analyzing children's agency is crucial for understanding the inner workings of households. This issue is especially salient for developing countries, as childless families constitute a small portion of the population. This study tests the intra-household decision-making power of work-eligible children (age 12–17) in rural Bangladesh using a restriction implied by the collective household model. By comparing households with working and non-working children, the study also tests whether working children have a greater say in their households than non-working ones. The findings suggest some evidence for children's decision-making power. The unitary household model is strongly rejected, and there is no evidence against Pareto efficiency. The results are particularly useful for the growing body of research that estimates intra-household inequality and individual-level poverty in developing countries using the collective model with certain assumptions on children's decision-making power. In addition to investigating children's say in the household, the study addresses several methodological issues in the literature regarding the price-based test of alternative collective models and Pareto efficiency. © 2025 Elsevier B.V.