Milk Money and Intra-Household Bargaining: Evidence on Pastoral Migration and Milk Sales from Northern Kenya

In this study, we investigate the impact of new market opportunities on Gabra nomadic pastoralists living in an arid climate in northern Kenya. The Gabra have recently experienced growth of milk marketing opportunities, and this change has caused a renegotiation of intrahousehold arrangements that affect households' location and migration decisions. We model three different outcomes of the household bargaining processes and test them empirically. Our results are consistent with a contested model of the household in which husbands locate households farther from towns in order to limit milk marketing opportunities.