1. Women and household financial decision making in PNG
Rohan Fox and Christopher Hoy
Photo credit: Kahunapule Michael John, flickr creative commons

2. 2 large scale surveys 688 total respondents
Morobe/Madang (2014)
Wewak (2017)
688 total respondents
301 women in male headed households
All household members surveyed
Random, representative sample
3035 total respondents
379 women in male headed households
1 respondent surveyed per household
Random, representative sample
While the surveys are very similar, the questions and sampling method were not exactly the same
(we did not conduct the surveys, they were undertaken by the ADB and World Bank)

3. Factors that could affect female financial decision making at the household level
Financial inclusion
Owning a bank account
Using a bank account
Household characteristics
Location (rural versus urban, near a bank, cost to get to town)
Household source of income (i.e. food/business, wage, cocoa)
Household members (total number, total number of working age)
Average household income
Individual characteristics
Education
Level of individual contribution to household income
Financial behaviour and literacy
Budgeting behaviour (i.e. do they write a budget?, do they stick to their budget?)
Cultural norms

8. Method
Start out by separating women solely responsible for expenditure (daily, regular, major) to those who are not
See if those responsible have more of any of the relevant factors previously outlined, than those who don’t
Repeat for women involved at all in expenditure
Do for both surveys
Statistical analysis
12 stepwise regressions conducted
OLS results checked against logit regression results for robustness
This is not a causal study

9. Factors that could affect female financial decision making at the household level
Household characteristics
Household source of income (i.e. food/business, wage, cocoa)
Household members (Total number, total number of working age)
Average household income
House is near a bank
Individual characteristics
Education
Financial behaviour and literacy
Budgeting behaviour (i.e. write a budget, stick to a budget)
Financial inclusion
Owning a bank account
Using a bank account
Cultural norms

10. Key findings
Financial inclusion is not clearly correlated with women having greater decision making
Having secondary or higher education is associated with greater levels of female decision making
Household income is negatively associated with higher levels of female decision making – puzzle – could be in cases where husband is sick or incapacitated – meaning that women make more decisions and the family earns less money, or that at lower incomes household decisions are seen as a burden rather than a benefit
Lack of covariates associated with women having greater decision making in households for major decisions – not even education has an impact, suggesting that perhaps cultural factors are particularly important
Source of income matters – whereas living in a household which gets most of its income from farming/gardening or business activity is associated positively with daily decision making, those with income derived from cocoa reported less involvement

11. Household characteristics Individual characteristics
RESULTS
MOMASE 2014
Female respondent
Male respondent
Female solo
Female involved
Daily
Major
Household characteristics
Respondents household relies on farm/garden or business -
Respondents household relies on wage income
Respondents household relies on cocoa income
Total household income per work-age person
Urban +
Number of household members
Number of household members of working age
Individual characteristics
Secondary education
Financial behaviour
Respondent budgets
Respondent writes down budget
Respondent sticks to budget
Respondent saves some of what they earn in a week
Financial inclusion
Respondent owns a bank account
Respondent uses a bank account at least once a month

12. Household characteristics Individual characteristics
RESULTS
WEWAK 2017
Female respondent
Male respondent
Female solo
Female involved
Daily
Major
Household characteristics
Respondents household relies on farm/garden or business +
Respondents household relies on wage income
Respondents household relies on cocoa income -
Total household income per work-age person
Contribution to household income
Urban
Costs over 10 kina to get to town
Number of household members
Number of household members of working age
Individual characteristics
Secondary education
Financial behaviour
Respondent budgets
Respondent writes down budget
Respondent sticks to budget
Respondent saves some of what they earn in a week
Financial inclusion
Respondent owns a bank account
Respondent uses a bank account at least once a month

13. Thank you