Gender, social norms, and household production in Burkina Faso

The article examines gender, social norms, and household production in Burkina Faso. In the context of agricultural production by a household unit, the ethnographic literature makes a distinction between common farm plots, managed by the household head, to which all household members tend to contribute some labor, and private plots that are worked individually or by smaller groups within the household. The head of the household carries a particular obligation to provide for the entire household using the proceeds from the common plot. Consistent with the theory, it is shown, using rainfall variations to capture exogenous weather shocks to agricultural output, that the head of the household has a higher propensity to spend on household public goods out of his farm income than do the other household members. This suggests that members of the household should be more willing to work on the plots farmed by the household head than on private plots.