Abstract:
This paper develops and uses the Model of Emerging and Constructed Opportunities
(MECO) to analyze the emergence of systematic institutional
and gender-based differential advantage. Using an evolutionary process with
reference group effects, certain household power relations that are "less fit"
are abandoned in favor of household power relations that are "more fit." The
model illustrates processes whereby institutional and gender-based differential
advantage could emerge: (1) through stochastic processes if different
genders experience asymmetric shocks affecting their economic opportunity;
(2) as the result of gender-based differences in investment bias; or (3) as the
result of gender-based differences in responses to servility. The evolutionary
process in the MECO is one where agents within households see themselves
as servile if they have less ability to influence the allocation of resources in
their household than their peers. When agents deem themselves as servile
they shirk and household production is diminished. As such, there are costs
and benefits to having power in the household. Both agents in the household
may be made better off by abandoning one household power relation in favor
of another. In particular, the MECO contributes to the literature by analyzing
the emergence of (1) gender-based differences in "exit options" and
(2) gender-based differences in terms of ability to influence intra-household
allocations.
