Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Households in low-and middle income countries (LMICs) derive income from a variety of sources. While a large body of evidence shows that households are not unitary decision-makers, the extent to which individual decision-making over different sources of household income affects consumption remains underexplored. In this paper, I use household panel data (n=1512) from the 2013 and 2016 Malawi Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) to test the relationship between female control over different income sources and household hunger and dietary diversity. Panel regressions show that households with female control over income from crop sales face fewer months of hunger, but are not significantly more likely to consume more diverse foods. The findings align with literature on intra-household dynamics, which shows that households respond differently to a change in income according to who has control over the additional resources. The contribution of agricultural income towards household welfare suggests that mental accounting, that is, people’s tendency to reserve certain income sources to specific uses, may be at play. The implications of the findings are twofold. First, gendered preferences of household members who control income may mitigate household hunger. Second, agricultural income, specifically from crop sales, may play an important role for household food security.