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Paper short abstract:

I propose that women's exclusion from critical household decision is a form of women's insecurity. This study uses social survey data from Pakistan to explore the factors influencing bargaining power of Pakistani women in intrahousehold decision-making and determines their participation.

Paper long abstract:

This study uses social survey data from Pakistan (Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017-18) to explore the factors influencing bargaining power of Pakistani women in intrahousehold decision-making and determines their participation in these decisions. Extending from Naila Kabeer’s resources, agency, and achievements framework, this study uses decision-making agency as a proxy for a woman’s relative position and status within the family and household. Exclusion from household decisions undermines women’s well-being and self-esteem, and therefore, I argue is a form of women’s insecurity.

Results from logistic regression analysis show that relative bargaining power of women, indicated by their relative age (with regards to their husbands’), relative earnings, and relative education, impacts the complex dynamics of intrahousehold decision making as well. Additionally, years since cohabitation, being married to the household head, and owning property increases the women’s intrahousehold decision making agency whereas a greater number of children and being married to a blood relative decreases it.

It is critical to engage with negotiations of agency and autonomy as experienced by contemporary Pakistani women. This research is an important contribution to the inquiry into gender inequalities in the South Asia, because it studies women in Pakistan as they navigate structural inequalities within homes, despite getting education and entering the labour force in larger numbers than ever before. This study highlights the significance of measures of women’s agency and empowerment, distinct from the ones that are widely accepted in the Global North, that incorporate sociocultural context of households in the Global South.