Effects of Higher Spousal Earnings on Women's Social Empowerment in Ghana

Existing research shows that access to employment and earnings appears to have ambiguous effects on women’s bargaining power and subsequent empowerment. This study explores the effect of higher relative earnings by women on the likelihood of social empowerment and examines to what extent the relationship is moderated by husbands’ education levels. The 2008 and 2014 rounds of the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey are used for the analyses, and a Probit regression model, with interaction effects, is employed as a base model. In order to account for potential selectivity bias, a propensity matching technique is also employed. Findings indicated a strong positive relationship between wives’ higher earnings in Ghanaian households and a higher probability of social empowerment. The relationship appears to be moderated, to a significant extent, by partners’ education—the presence of educated husbands widens the social empowerment gap between women who earn more than their husbands and women who do not. Although the effect of differential earnings on social empowerment is smaller once selectivity was controlled for, the positive relationship is consistent. Other findings highlighted the role of various occupations, age at marriage, education, religion as contributory factors to women’s empowerment in Ghana, with attendant implications for policy.