Determinants of Gender Responsive Spending in Rural Families in Tamil Nadu

Abstract

A study was conducted among 120 as respondents in Six villages of Madurai district with the objective of analysing the determinants for gender neutral spending in families and to predict their willingness to spend gender neutrally. Ex-post facto research design was employed and the respondents were selected using random sampling procedure. The data was collected using a well-structured interview schedule. The results revealed that among the determinants differential needs of sons/daughters, earning of husband and wife, urge for giving good education, perceived importance of the issue, availability of money for spending were found to be highly influencing the respondents to spend gender neutrally in families. Similarly, Influence on relatives on spending decisions, influence of neighbours on spending decision, social values, spending for health were the determinants which were moderately influencing the gender neutral spending in families. Binary Logistic Regression results revealed that the willingness of a parent improves 18 times if he/she is influenced by differential need of son and daughters. Further, it was found that, if a parent is influenced by urge for giving good education, the odds of his/her willingness to neutrally spend in families would increase by a factor of 17.58 units.