Does economic crisis have different impact on husbands and wives? Evidence from the Asian Financial Crisis in Indonesia

Abstract

This paper analyzes the intra‐household allocation of risk‐coping mechanisms by testing whether the Asian financial crisis affected married men and women differently in Indonesia. It estimates the effect of the district consumption shock during the crisis on the change in married men's and women's working status and assets. It finds that the regional shock is associated with a large increase in wives’ employment and a large decrease in wives’ business assets in urban areas, and not associated with change in husbands’ working status or asset holdings in urban areas. In rural areas the regional shock is associated with a drop in women's business assets and not related to other outcomes of husbands or wives. Receiving government social safety net program aid during the crisis seems to substitute for the decrease in business assets of women as a coping strategy in both urban and rural areas.