The Long-term Effects of Violent Conflict on Women’s Intra-Household Decision-Making Power

Does exposure to civil war during childhood affect women’s later-life intra-household decision-making power? This paper examines the long-term effects of early-life exposure to the Nigerian Civil War on women’s decision-making power within the household, using data from the 2008 Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey. To identify the effects, we adopt a difference-in-differences approach which exploits variation in exposure to the civil war by year of birth and ethnicity. The results show that early-life exposure to the war decreases the likelihood of women’s decision-making power within the household in adulthood. Likely mechanisms include different fertility and marriage choices as well as poorer education, health, and employment outcomes as a result of exposure to the war, which would place women in a more precarious position in the household relative to their partners.