About This Project

This research is interested in the economics of polygynous households and how that compares to monogamous households in Sierra Leone. We measure the extent to which household members compete with each other to maximize personal resources and cooperate with each other to maximize collective gains. Additionally, we measure whether resource allocation differs according to member status (such as first wife or first born son),

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What is the context of this research?

Polygyny, the practice of one man marrying multiple wives, is a common marriage arrangement in West Africa. Around 37% of married women in Sierra Leone are in polygynous unions. These families tend to be the poorest, the most rural, and tend to have the lowest levels of literacy and educational attainment. Past research, mostly qualitative, suggests that there is acute competition between co-wives, but there is little empirical evidence of such dynamics. This study provides measures of competition and cooperation and links these outcomes to household resource allocation. Understanding bargaining power of household members provides important knowledge on how to effectively design programs that target the poor in complex maritial contexts.

What is the significance of this project?

Given how common the practice of polygyny is in Sierra Leone, and the fact that those who practice it are among the poorest, understanding the economic dynamics within these unions is imperative to designing population-specific interventions. Outcomes of polygyny differ depending on cultural/regional context and this study is first to examine this topic in the Sierra Leone. The resulting information will be beneficial to policy makers interested in targeting poor households through cash transfers or household benefit programs, especially those that currently provide benefits to either the head of the household or to only one wife.

What are the goals of the project?

The goal of the project is to collect original data and perform quantitative analysis on competition, cooperation, and resource allocation among members of polygynous and monogamous households. There is little quantitative research on the topic and none at all from Sierra Leone. This project starts to fill the research gap on socio-economic topics in one of the world’s poorest countries. We do this through a series of field experiments which measure competition between spouses and co-wives and generosity towards spouses and co-wives. A survey documents health, education, and economic outcomes for spouses and their children, intrapersonal household dynamics, and household economics for each household type (single, mono and single).