Household consumption allocation and the collective household model: Children share of household resources in The Gambia

Abstract

This paper applies the collective household model to allocate household resources among household members. With a Collective Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (CQUAIDS) estimated by a Feasible Generalized Nonlinear Least Squares (FGNLS) method, it studies the household demand for six categories of household goods using household income and expenditure survey data from The Gambia, directed to studying the allocation of resources among young and adult members of households in The Gambia. It establishes the sharing rule for children and adult members of the household and shows the effect of demographic, distributive factor, price and income elasticities on the shares of household resources. The results establish that a higher share of resources goes for children while the sharing rule varies for different household types. Also, the findings show significant effects of demographic, distributive factor, price and income on the allocation of the household resources of consumption goods by the household.