Who Decides?

Although there is some research on how charitable giving is managed within a household and how these decisions are made (e.g., Burgoyne, Young & Walker, 2005), little research has been conducted on the role of gender in reaching these decisions.  Because men and women’s preferences for giving are different, research has begun to examine the question as to who in the household is the primary decision-maker with regard to giving to charity.  Andreoni, Brown and Rischall’s (2003) study examined intra-household decision-making and found evidence that bargaining, predominantly favoring husbands, characterize how household charitable decisions are made.  Overall, their results found that single men and women exhibit different tendencies toward giving as well as married individuals.  When decisions were made jointly, husbands had more influence over their wives in deciding on charitable giving.  However, they found that education and income were the primary determinants of control over charitable resources—being the primary earner strengthens one’s bargaining power in marriage as does the husband’s education relative to the wife’s.  When the woman is the decision-maker, however, she is significantly more likely to give to education than is the husband or a jointly deciding couple.

Rooney, Brown and Mesch (2007) examined the question as to who decides—looking specifically at giving to education.  Consistent with Andreoni et al. (2003), this study found that women decision-makers are more likely to have a positive effect on both the likelihood of giving to education as well as the amounts given to education.  They also found that when females are the main decision-makers, there is a positive effect on secular giving and no effect on religious giving, holding other factors constant.  But when couples decide the amounts to give separately, there is a positive association with secular giving and a negative relationship with religious giving (p. 240).

Kamas, Preston and Baum’s (2008) laboratory study finds support for the influence of women in the decision-making of giving.  Across mixed-sex pairings, a significantly greater percent of men changed their giving toward women’s gifts and that the group gift was more likely to move towards the female gift than to the male gift.  Hughes and Luksetich (2008) found differential impact of husbands’ and wives’ earnings on charitable contributions.  Specifically, they found that the elasticity of permanent income for the head of the household was significantly higher than that of the wife, where the man’s earnings had a positive impact on total donations, and the variation in the wife’s earnings had a negative impact.

Where Do Women Give?

Women tend to give to organizations that have had an impact on them or someone they know personally (Parsons, 2004; Burgoyne, Young, & Walker, 2005).  Subsequently, much of the empirical research indicates that men and women exhibit different charity choices and patterns of donating money.  Several studies found that males tend to concentrate their giving among a few charities, whereas females were more likely to spread the amounts they give across a wide range of charities (e.g., Andreoni, Brown, & Rischall, 2003; Piper & Schnepf, 2008).  That is, “women are more egalitarian in their giving, while men are more strategic” (Brown, 2006).  These studies also found differences in the types of charities men and women choose to give--women are more likely to give to human service, health, and education while men are more likely to give to adult recreation and sports. One study found that men are more likely to give to veterans and civil rights organizations (Einolf, 2006).  Piper and Schnepf (2008) examined the probability of giving and the amount given by men and women across 15 charities in Great Britain and found the percentage of female donors to be significantly higher than that of male donors for almost all causes.  However, Eckel and Grossman (2003) found that men and women exhibited a high degree of similarity in their charity choice, but that women were more generous than men in six of the ten cases (pg. 694).

Several studies support the finding that women are more likely to give specifically to educational causes than men (e.g., Einolf, 2006; Piper & Schnepf, 2008; Rooney, Brown, & Mesch, 2007).  However, other studies find no statistical difference between alumni giving of men and women (Okunade, Wunnava, & Walsh, 1994; Wunnava & Lauze, 2001), or that males actually donate significantly more than females (Okunade, 1996).  Wunnava and Lauze (2001) found that, when examining the differences between consistent and occasional donors, for occasional donors, males give significantly more to education.

Several studies find support that women are more likely to give to human services, children, and health-related charities (e.g., Einolf, 2006; Marx, 2000; Midlarsky & Hannah, 1989; Piper & Schnepf, 2008).  Marx (2000) found that women donate more and were almost twice as likely to be donors to human services than men—controlling for the effects of other demographic and motivational characteristics.  Using an experimental research design, Midlarsky and Hannah (1989) found that women are more likely to donate to a fund for infants with birth defects than men.  In a survey of current and lapsed donors to the American Lung Association, Keyt, Yavas, and Riecken (2002) found that the non-donor group had a disproportionate number of males.  However, Jackson and Latané  (1981) found men to donate more to female door-to-door solicitors who represented the Leukemia Society of America, and, in the Netherlands, Bekkers (2007) found that males are more likely to give to health charities.

In terms of religious giving, Kamas, Preston and Baum (2008) found that women gave more in anonymous giving across all religious denominations and that high income women gave significantly more than high-income men.  However, some research indicates that males give more to religion (e.g., Brown & Ferris, 2007), but females give more to secular causes and for helping those in need (e.g., Brown & Ferris, 2007; Regnerus, Smith, & Sikkink, 1998).  Whereas, other studies find that females are more likely to give to religion (i.e., Newman, 1995; Piper & Schnepf, 2008; Yen, 2002).  More specifically, Piper and Schnepf (2008) found that while married men and women show the same level of support for religious organizations, among single people, women are nearly twice as likely as men to give to them. Even after controlling for different characteristics (age, income, living alone, region, education, and proxies for wealth), this gender difference remains significant (p. 114).

Israel (2007) found that females had a significantly higher probability of giving to environmental causes, however, Piper and Schnepf (2008) found little gender difference for this cause.  Instead, Piper and Schnepf (2008) found that women were significantly more likely to donate to animal welfare than men.

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