Leaning in at Home: Women's Promotions and Intra-household Bargaining in Bangladesh

Abstract

It is established that entering employment improves a woman's bargaining position in the household. This paper investigates whether a woman's career advancement further improves her intra-household bargaining power. The analysis exploits quasi-random participation in a career promotion program in Bangladesh's garment industry to causally estimate the impact of women's promotion on household decision-making. The findings show that women who participate in the promotion program gain bargaining power as measured by higher expenditures on women (51%) and girls (74%), and on remittances (58%). The promotion-related income effect only partially explains these increases, suggesting that women gain more agency over household income more generally. Further, these new female managers now serve as role models to their staff. The paper finds that the direct effects spill over to women who are quasi-randomly exposed to the new female managers, who also report more say in household decisions. Complementarities between women's positions in the workplace and in the household appear important.