Intra-Household Labor Gatekeeping
RCTReview
Female labor force participation in conservative settings is heavily restricted because male spouses hold decision-making authority over whether wives can work or move outside the village.
Picture this
Intra-household labor gatekeeping is like a building with a master lock where only one person holds the key. Even if an occupant wants to leave the house for a job, they remain trapped inside unless the keyholder chooses to unlock the door.
What the evidence says
Nearly 25% of women and 33% of men agreed that "women cannot go out to work," and a majority of married women reported that their husbands had the primary say in employment decisions.
- Who was studied
- N = 5,851 women and male spouses in 197 village clusters in Madhya Pradesh, India.
- How
- Baseline survey (2013–2014) within a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) quantifying male decision-making authority, employment agreement, and female mobility constraints.
What to do
Incorporate measures of spouse decision-making power and mobility constraints into baseline assessments to identify households where male gatekeeping presents the primary barrier to female economic participation.
From the source
"Importantly, a majority of married women in the studied village clusters stated their husband had the most say in whether they worked."
Impact_of_Financial_Control_on_Womens_Labor_Supply_and_Gender_Norms.pdf