Leaning in at Home : Women's Promotions and Intra-household Bargaining in Bangladesh

It is established that entering employment improves a woman's bargaining position inthe household. This paper investigates whether a woman's career advancement further improves herintra-household bargaining power. The analysis exploits quasi-random participation in a career promotion program inBangladesh's garment industry to causally estimate the impact of women's promotion on householddecision-making. The findings show that women who participate in the promotion program gain bargaining poweras measured by higher expenditures on women (51%) and girls (74%), and on remittances (58%). The promotion-relatedincome effect only partially explains these increases, suggesting that women gain more agency over household incomemore generally. Further, these new female managers now serve as role models to their staff. The paper finds that thedirect effects spill over to women who are quasi-randomly exposed to the new female managers, who also report more sayin household decisions. Complementarities between women's positions in the workplace and in the householdappear important.