Is Female Genital Circumcision a Driver of Income Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa? Evidence from Nigeria

This study considers the effects of female genital circumcision (FGC) on household income inequality in Nigeria. To the extent that FGC has adverse health consequences, it can lower female labour productivity and earnings relative to males. Theoretically, we motivate our inquiry within a simple game-theoretic household norm bargaining framework in which there are several possible equilibria based on the decisions of representative males to require FGC, and representative females accepting, or not. We link regional data on Nigeria from the Afrobarometer survey to existing regional FGC surveillance data in Nigeria to estimate with Ordinal Logit specifications, the effect of regional FGC rates on a household's position in the income distribution. Our parameter estimates reveal that as the ratio of daughter to mother genital circumcision increases in a region, the odds of a household being in the lower income decile increases. The FGC effects are consistent with a political economy of gender bargaining about FGC choices in which males have more bargaining power in governing/managing the household relative to females. Our results suggest that any policy intervention that eradicates FGC, including interventions that affect a political economy of bargaining that at least equalises bargaining power between males and females, could reduce household income inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa.