The Korean Journal of Economic Studies
Charitable Giving by Household Types and its Decision in Intrahousehold Allocation
Heonjae Song (University of Seoul) and Bo Min Kim (Korea University)Year 2017Vol. 65No. 2
Abstract
We examine how charitable giving is influenced by gender and householdtype. Looking first at single-person households, we find men and women havesignificantly different tastes for giving, but do not observe a difference inmarginal propensity to contribute. No significant difference is found in theeffects of socio-demographic covariates on total contributions between them.For the case of couples, socio-demographic factors such as age and educationseem to affect differently on total contributions between husband and wife.Husband’s marginal propensity to contribute depends on only his income,while wife’s marginal propensity to contribute depends on both her income andher spouse’s. Our empirical findings show that there can be bargaining powerover charitable giving between husband and wife. It can partly explain differentpatterns of charitable giving behaviors between single-person households andcouples. Our results give new insights into both the demographics ofcharitable giving and the costliness of household bargaining.