We examine how charitable giving is influenced by gender and household
type. Looking first at single-person households, we find men and women have
significantly different tastes for giving, but do not observe a difference in
marginal propensity to contribute. No significant difference is found in the
effects of socio-demographic covariates on total contributions between them.
For the case of couples, socio-demographic factors such as age and education
seem 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 and
her spouse’s. Our empirical findings show that there can be bargaining power
over charitable giving between husband and wife. It can partly explain different
patterns of charitable giving behaviors between single-person households and
couples. Our results give new insights into both the demographics of
charitable giving and the costliness of household bargaining.