Like father, like son, like mother, like daughter: Intergenerational transmission of intrahousehold gender attitudes in Ethiopia

Abstract

This paper draws on a novel large-scale dataset from rural Ethiopia to analyze the intergenerational transmission of male dominance in decision-making. More specifically, I analyze whether male dominance in decision-making, male engagement in household tasks and intimate partner violence in currently formed marital households are correlated with the patterns of male dominance reported in the natal households of both the husband and wife, an analysis conducted for the first time in a developing country context. The empirical results suggest that patterns of male dominance have shifted rapidly in a single generation, and there is very little evidence of any intergenerational transmission. More specifically, the estimated relationships between male dominance in the natal and marital households are varying in sign and statistically insignificant. I present further evidence that this pattern may reflect a very weak intrahousehold correlation in gender attitudes between husband and wife: male dominance in the natal household is predictive of individual gender attitudes, but gender attitudes are on average not similar comparing across spouses.