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Abstract
Using the Indonesian setting with its cultural heterogeneity, this paper examines women’s
bargaining power in the distribution of household expenditures. Women’s share of assets and
participation in community-based organizations and development in the village is used to
approach bargaining power. This study employs the Indonesian longitudinal dataset from the
Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS). The results show that women’s share of assets has
negative effect on adult goods expenditure. This finding confirms that women’s share of asset
explicitly increase women autonomy not to allocate the budget share on adult goods
expenditure which is identical to male domination. Women’s share of assets also has positive
and substantial effect on richer nutrients expenditure such as meat and fish and dairy
products. It is also found that women participation in the community-based organization in
the village has negative and significant effect on budget share of staple food and adult goods
expenditure. This finding embraces the importance of women’s power in the household
particularly in terms of distribution of household expenditures to the spending that increase
the welfare of the household.