There is evidence that property ownership empowers women by increasing their self-confidence, ability to contribute to decisions, control over their reproductive behaviour, ability to borrow and economic independence. Yet, women around the world own negligible assets. It is not surprising that assets ownership among Nepalese women is insignificant. In urban areas of Nepal, however, women’s assets holdings have increased dramatically over the last four decades. The article analyses the institutions that resulted in increased asset hold- ings among women in Kathmandu, Nepal, and shows how strategic action by some men and women has given rise to new norms which favour property ownership among women. The findings are based on a sample of 193 women who legally own property (home or land) in Kathmandu, Nepal.

1. Rising property ownership among
women in Kathmandu, Nepal:
an exploration of causes and
consequencesijsw_663 281..292
Pandey S. Rising property ownership among women in
Kathmandu, Nepal: an exploration of causes and
consequences
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 281–292 © 2009 The Author(s),
Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the
International Journal of Social Welfare.
There is evidence that property ownership empowers women
by increasing their self-confidence, ability to contribute to
decisions, control over their reproductive behaviour, ability to
borrow and economic independence. Yet, women around the
world own negligible assets. It is not surprising that assets
ownership among Nepalese women is insignificant. In urban
areas of Nepal, however, women’s assets holdings have
increased dramatically over the last four decades. The article
analyses the institutions that resulted in increased asset hold-
ings among women in Kathmandu, Nepal, and shows how
strategic action by some men and women has given rise to new
norms which favour property ownership among women. The
findings are based on a sample of 193 women who legally own
property (home or land) in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Shanta Pandey
Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA
Key words: women’s property rights, inheritance rights,
empowerment, Nepal
Shanta Pandey, George Warren Brown School of Social Work,
Washington University, Box 1196, St Louis, MO 63130, USA
E-mail: pandeys@wustl.edu
Accepted for publication January 8, 2009
An institution is a set of formal or informal ‘rules of the
game in a society’ designed to shape human interaction
or behaviour (North, 1990: 3). A country’s ‘laws, con-
stitutions, codes of conduct, and social norms embody
shared understandings of acceptable behavior and serve
as the basis for rewarding and punishing individual acts
of conformity or deviance’ (Lesorogol, 2003: 531).
Because these rules (or constraints) are designed to
shape human interaction, members in a society must be
aware of them (Knight, 1992). According to North
(1990: 6), ‘the major role of the institutions in a society
is to reduce uncertainty by establishing a stable (but not
necessarily efficient) structure to human interaction’.
Over time, institutions change in response to changing
social, political and economic environments, reflecting
the new needs of market agents (Ensminger & Knight,
1997; Knight 1992; Libecap, 1989). Institutions may
change, especially if new rules are beneficial to the
powerful and the elites of a society. This article exam-
ines the change in norms in property transfer to women
in urban Nepal.
While Nepalese women in the aggregate own meagre
assets, their wealth is increasing in the cities.At present,
very few studies are available to examine the change in
norms that has resulted in increased property ownership
among women in Kathmandu, Nepal. This study
explains how urban women may have succeeded in
breaking through the limitations that traditional society
imposed on them with regard to property ownership. It
shows that changing social and economic conditions
have prompted individuals with resources to take strate-
gic actions that have influenced change in property
institutions favouring women. In particular, the study
poses the following questions: What factors are instru-
mental in wealth accumulation among women in Kath-
mandu? Why is property ownership among women an
urban phenomenon in Nepal? Do women with more
secure property rights engage in decision making more
than those with less secure property rights?
Background
Studies show that ownership and control over property
improves women’s economic, social and psychological
wellbeing, thus contributing to their overall empower-
ment (see, e.g.,Agarwal, 1994a, 1994b, 1998; Blackden
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2397.2009.00663.x
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 281–292
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNA L OF
SOCIAL WELFARE
ISSN 1369-6866
© 2009 The Author(s)
Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare.
Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA 281

2. & Bhanu, 1999; Panda, 2003; Pandey, 2003; Sherraden,
1991; United Nations Development Programme
[UNDP], 1995, 1996; World Bank, 1999). In areas of
India where women are excluded from owning property,
women receive less food and less care and have a higher
rate of dowry-related deaths than in areas where women
have some rights to land (Agarwal, 1994a, 1994b; Wil-
ligen & Channa, 1991). In Kerala, women who own
property (house or land) are significantly less likely to
encounter domestic violence (physical or psychologi-
cal) from their husband or in-laws, even after controlling
for other well-known correlates, including women’s
education, income, social support, husband’s risk
behaviour and a history of violence in the wife’s family
during her childhood (Panda, 2003).
Studies in Africa have also shown positive effects of
assets ownership on the economic empowerment of
women. In Kenya, Ensminger and Knight (1997) noted
that dowry given by the groom’s family directly to the
bride instead of to her family, and the recognition of
women’s rights to inherit property, enhanced women’s
status and bargaining power. Women’s ownership of
assets is associated with greater access to financial
institutions and credit, economic participation, produc-
tion efficiency, household bargaining power and man-
agement of household income (Abbas, 1997; Agarwal,
1997; Arun, 2001; Meinzen-Dick, Brown, Feldstein &
Quisumbing, 1997; Panda, 2003; Pandey, 2003; Udry,
1996; UNDP, 1996, 2003). Also, when women control
family financial resources, more resources are allocated
for children’s needs (see Lundberg, Pollak & Wales,
1996; Roldan, 1988; World Bank, 1995).
Traditionally, property rights institutions have
favoured men over women in agrarian economies.
Property laws, in many countries, treat men as the
household head who often enjoys complete control of
the family property. Women may play a major role in
food production and agricultural labour, but often lack
secure tenure to the land they cultivate (UNDP, 2003;
Whitehead & Tsikata, 2003). For instance, fewer than
one in ten female farmers in Kenya, India, Nepal, Thai-
land and Uganda have title to property (Human Rights
Watch, 2003; UNDP, 2003). In Nepal, less than 7 per
cent of women legally own a house or land (Dhakal,
2004). Even in countries such as Indonesia, India,
Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, where women have legal
rights to inherit an equal share of their father’s prop-
erty, in practice men continue to fare better, either
because women are unaware of their rights or because
they lack power, time and resources to pursue them
(Deere & Leon, 2001; Ihromi, 1994; Mukhopadhyay,
2001).
Women in many African countries are excluded
from inheriting property directly; they gain access to
land through their relationship to men – their husbands,
fathers, brothers or sons (Kevane & Gray, 1999;
Yngstrom, 2002). In Kenya, Burkina Faso, Tanzania,
Namibia and Uganda, women have the right to cultivate
and dispose of crops and income from crops, but lack
control over the land, which is generally owned by their
husband (Kevane & Gray, 1999; Udry, 1996). Married
women in these countries cannot prevent their husband
from selling family property, due to discriminatory
property rights laws and social customs (Human Rights
Watch, 2003). Also, women risk losing their family
wealth (home, land, livestock) to their husband’s rela-
tives upon divorce or death of their husband (Food and
Agriculture Organization [FAO], 2004; FAO/OXFAM,
2003; Yngstrom, 2002). Thus, women’s bargaining
power within the household is limited (Kevane & Gray,
1999).
International organisations have advocated for the
elimination of all forms of discrimination against
women (United Nations, 2000). In some countries,
property institutions have changed, improving women’s
property rights. Nepal is one such country where insti-
tutions governing property have undergone significant
changes. Urban women in Nepal have increased their
property holdings and have pushed for further changes
in institutions favouring greater ownership of property
among women.
Nepalese property rights institutions
In many respects, Nepal is a typical least developed,
agrarian society with high levels of gender disparity.
The literacy rate among men aged 15 and over is 60 per
cent, but only 24 per cent for women in the same age
group (UNDP, 2002). Much of the country is rural and
men hold title to most of the lands. Women gain access
to these lands through their kinship or marital relation-
ship to men. An overwhelming majority of rural women
remain untouched by any progressive institutional
change at the national level. Approximately 12 per cent
of Nepal’s 23.2 million population reside in urban areas
(Central Bureau of Statistics, 2000, 2002), of which
81.2 per cent of adult men and 56.9 per cent of adult
women were literate in 2000 (UNDP, 2002).
Nepalese property law has its roots in Manusmriti,
or the laws of Manu, which describe the rules of life,
including the place of women in society. Women,
according to Manu, are not fit to think or live indepen-
dently: ‘In childhood a woman should be under her
father’s control, in youth under her husband’s, and
when her husband is dead, under her sons’. She should
not have independence’ (translated by Doniger &
Smith, 1991: 115). About women’s property rights,
Manusmriti states that it is the duty of the father or
brother to gift a daughter/sister at wedding and to bear
the cost of the wedding. If a father dies before his
daughter(s) is married, ‘the brothers should individu-
ally give their virgin (sisters) something from their own
Pandey
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Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare

3. portion, a quarter share of each one’s own portion’
(Doniger & Smith, 1991: 211). Manusmriti also clari-
fies that any property a woman receives as a gift at her
wedding (Daijo) should, after her death, be passed on to
her daughter(s) alone (Doniger & Smith, 1991). These
religious traditions and norms clearly influenced
Nepal’s first legislation, the National Code (Muluki
Ain), passed in 1853. In the National Code, women’s
rights to property were limited to gifts and bequests. A
daughter was not entitled to inherit her paternal prop-
erty if the father, mother, brothers, brother’s son or
other male relatives on the father’s side were surviving.
A divorced woman lost all property rights, and if she
initiated a divorce, she lost entitlement to any alimony.
These rules did not change for the next 100 years. The
1963 amendment of the National Code, the New
National Code (Naya Muluki Ain), addressed some of
the gender discriminatory issues but left laws relating
to property rights unchanged.
The Sixth Amendment (1977) of the New National
Code of 1963 included a separate chapter on women’s
property rights (strianshadhan), which categorised
their rights into two types – limited (or conditional)
rights and absolute rights (Shrestha, 1999). This
amendment brought about four key changes with
regard to women’s property rights. First, an unmarried
(virgin) daughter of 35 years or older became entitled to
the same amount of parental property as her brother(s).
However, her rights were conditional in that if she
married after receiving her share of property, she had to
return that share (after deducting marriage costs) to her
brother(s). Second, a daughter became eligible to
inherit parental property in the absence of a father,
mother, brothers or brothers’ sons. Other male rela-
tives, such as uncles or uncles’ sons, could no longer
claim a right to the property if the deceased had a
surviving daughter. Third, married women were entitled
to a portion of their husband’s property if they were
married for 15 years and were at least 35 years old (30
years old for widows). The law mandated that ancestral
property be equally divided among son(s), mother and
father. However, to sell or give half of such property to
anyone (including daughters) other than the rightful
heirs (husband and sons), women had to seek the prior
consent of their husband or adult son(s) (Malla, 2000;
Shrestha, 1999). Fourth, a woman who divorced her
husband on grounds of misbehaviour, and was without
any means of subsistence, was entitled to alimony for 5
years or until she remarried, whichever occurred first.
Also, the Sixth Amendment clarified that a Nepali
woman enjoyed absolute legal rights to four types of
property: gifts (given by her maternal or paternal rela-
tives and friends); bequests (any property given in
writing by her husband or husband’s relatives); will
(property received in a will from anyone related or
unrelated); and personal earnings (Pandey, 2003;
Shrestha, 1999). The law stipulated that a woman had
the right to use her gifts, bequests, wills and personal
earnings as she wished while she was alive and could
will that property to anyone she wished after her death.
In 2002, Nepal amended its legislation1 and
expanded women’s property rights by allowing daugh-
ters to inherit an equal share of ancestral property at
birth (Shrestha, 2008). But the amendment continues to
ensure men’s advantage over women. It maintains that
if a daughter receives a share of paternal property
before marriage, she will relinquish her rights to the
unused portion of this property upon marriage. The
2002 amendment, however, substantially improves the
property rights of married women. Before 2002,
women had to be married for at least 15 years and be at
least 35 years old to qualify for a share of the husband’s
property. Under the 2002 amendment, women qualify
for a share of the husband’s property immediately after
marriage, and a widow without sons need not wait until
she is 30 years old to claim a share of property from her
in-laws. If she re-marries, she need not return the share
of property she had received from her in-laws
(Shrestha, 2008). The amendment continues to honour
women’s absolute rights over the properties they
acquire in the form of gifts, bequests, will or purchased
using personal earnings (Shrestha, 2008).
In a land-based economy like Nepal’s, much of the
property ownership is through inheritance rights. As is
evident above, the rules so far favour men over women
and thus, most rural women do not own immovable
property. Women who are eligible to claim a share of
property from their husband, father or brother may not
know their rights or lack resources to utilise these insti-
tutions to their advantage. Thus, they continue to work
on lands owned by their male relatives.
In urban areas, however, women have been gaining
property advantage over time. Interestingly, it is men
who have been buying property in their wife’s name,
thus dramatically increasing asset holdings among
women. This study is designed to understand the factors
that contributed to the rise in affluence among women
in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Methodology
The data were collected between 2000 and 2001 using
multiple sources. First, laws related to Nepalese
women’s rights to property were reviewed. Second, the
expert opinion of lawyers, local political leaders and
academicians studying the property rights of women
1 The data analysed in this article, however, were collected
between 2000 and 2001 before the 11th amendment in 2002,
and therefore the results are not affected by this amendment.
Rising property ownership among women in Kathmandu
© 2009 The Author(s)
Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare 283

4. was sought. Third, three separate focus group inter-
views were conducted – one with a group of six female
elementary school teachers, one with a group of eight
housewives and one with a group of four professional
women. These interviews were unstructured.
Fourth, to examine the prevalence of women’s home
ownership, a list of property owners in four of the 34
wards in Kathmandu was obtained from the Office of
Kathmandu Metropolitan area (also called as Office of
Kathmandu Nagar Palika). The officials were compil-
ing the data to more accurately levy property taxes and
had completed these four Wards. In this study, the count
of male and female property owners was tabulated by
ward. To reduce error, properties with multiple owners,
with missing owner names, or where owners had
gender neutral names were excluded.
Fifth, 434 women who were at least 18 years old and
resided in Kathmandu valley were interviewed using a
non-probability convenience sampling method. The
interviewers interviewed only those women who met
the selection criteria and were willing to be inter-
viewed. These women were identified through the inter-
viewers’ personal contacts. For instance, some women
came from the interviewers’ own neighbourhood or that
of the interviewers’ friends, uncles and so on. Alto-
gether, the respondents came from 64 different neigh-
bourhoods (tol) in Kathmandu.
The questionnaire was developed after reviewing
the literature and was pre-tested for cultural sensitiv-
ity, logic and clarity with three Nepali women before
finalising it. The instrument had both structured and
open-ended questions, which captured demographics,
nature of property owned and empowerment-related
information. Four Nepali women with strong commu-
nication skills were hired to conduct interviews: a
graduate student, an undergraduate student, a profes-
sional woman, and a homemaker. Each was trained to
conduct person-to-person interviews. The interviews
lasted approximately an hour. This article is based on
a subsample of 193 women who were the sole owners
of at least one property in Kathmandu. Properties
owned were divided into three mutually exclusive cat-
egories: land, a house, or a house with land. If a prop-
erty had enough space to build at least one additional
house, that property was considered to be a house
with land.
Key measures
Independent variable. Type of property referred to
two groups of women – those with absolute rights and
those with limited rights to the property. The former
group included women who had acquired the property
in their lifetime from various sources (either as a gift, a
bequest or bought with their own income, with joint
earnings or solely with the husband’s earnings). These
women could manage, enjoy and dispose of their prop-
erty at will. However, if the woman died before legally
transferring her property to anyone, the rightful heirs
(husband and male offspring) automatically acquired
the right to own and dispose of the property. The latter
group included women who had inherited ancestral
property (from their spouse and/or in-laws), had the
right to use the property, but had only limited rights to
dispose of the property (Pandey, 2003). This variable
was dummy coded in multiple regression; absolute
property owners were coded as 1 and conditional prop-
erty owners were coded as 0.
Dependent variable. Four variables that reflected the
extent to which the respondent had a say in such key
household financial decisions as overall expenditure,
daily expenditure, monthly expenditure and major
expenditure were considered as dependent measures.
For each question, women who were the sole decision
makers were coded as 2, those who participated in
decisions with others in the house received a score of 1
and those who were fully marginalised and did not
participate in decision making were coded as 0. In
multiple regression, answers to these measures were
added and a summated scale indicative of overall finan-
cial decision making was created. A higher score on
this scale represented a higher level of participation in
household financial decision making.
Control variables. A series of demographic and
asset-related variables was controlled in multiple
regression. Caste of the respondent was a nominal level
variable; Chhetri and Brhamin are considered socio-
economically privileged and were coded as 1, whereas
other groups of women were coded as 0. Respondent’s
age and number of years she had owned property were
continuous variables. Marital status had two categories
– married (coded as 1) and unmarried (coded as 0).
Respondents born in Kathmandu were coded as 1 and
those who migrated to Kathmandu later were coded as
0. Education was dummy coded into three variables –
those with no formal education (reference group), those
with up to 10th grade of education, and those beyond
the 10th grade of education. Household size referred to
the total number of people in the house who regularly
ate from the same hearth. Respondents with at least one
surviving son were coded as 1 and those without a son
were coded as 0. Total worth of the property referred to
the respondents’ estimated current value of that prop-
erty in Nepali rupees. This variable was adjusted to
US$ value using the exchange rate of US$1 = 73 Nepali
rupees. Women with either savings or a checking
account were coded as 1 and those without either type
of bank account were coded as 0. Quantitative data
were analysed using the SAS software programme and
qualitative data were content analysed.
Pandey
284
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5. Results
Is property ownership among women rising in
Kathmandu?
Tabulation of administrative data showed that women
were the legal and sole owners of about a third of the
homes and land in Kathmandu (see Table 1). A higher
proportion of homes were registered in women’s names
in newly developed areas (e.g. Ward 2) compared with
the older parts of the city (e.g. Ward 20).
Who were the women property owners?
The property owners were mostly privileged caste,
Brahmin and Chhetri women, constituting 92 per cent
(n = 179) of the sample. The remaining 7 per cent (n =
14) were Newar. A majority (79 per cent) of them had
some education, on average 10 years. Twenty-three per
cent of the women had education beyond a high school
level. Eighty-four per cent were married, 14 per cent
widowed and the remaining 2 per cent single or never
married. On average, respondents had been married for
26 years. Their age ranged from 21 to 82 years, with an
average of 45 years. Nearly 59 per cent of the women
were born in Kathmandu; others had migrated to the
valley. Their property value ranged from US$1,370 to
US$171,233, with an average value of US$37,222.
What did they own and how did they acquire
ownership status?
Of the total sample, 62 per cent owned a house with
land, 20 per cent owned land without any building or
structure on it, and the remaining 18 per cent owned a
house (see Table 2). On average, they had owned prop-
erty for 13 years. Forty-seven per cent of the women
became property owners as a result of their husbands’
pooling their own and their wives’ earnings to buy the
property in the wife’s name. Gifts, bequests or pur-
chases using personal earnings resulted in property
ownership among 19 per cent of the women. According
to Nepali law, these women (66 per cent) enjoyed abso-
lute rights to their property. The remaining 34 per cent
had acquired property through legal transfer of ances-
tral property from their husband and in-laws, and thus
enjoyed conditional rights to their property. Those in
the first group hold more secure rights to the property,
whereas the second group’s rights to the property are
less secure and open to contestation.
What factors were instrumental in the property rise?
Increasingly, husbands were helping their wives accu-
mulate property with absolute rights. Women with
absolute rights had the right to exclude others, includ-
ing their husbands, from the use or sale of such prop-
erty. What could have triggered such a dramatic change
in property transfer to women in the city, while rural
areas of Nepal remain unchanged? Focus group meet-
ings and the opinions of men and women in prominent
positions resulted in several factors that shed light on
rising property ownership among women in Kath-
mandu. They were: (i) to avoid sharing assets with joint
family members; (ii) to reduce legal and closing costs
of property transfer; (iii) to increase financial security
in old age; (iv) to strengthen women’s status; (v) to
transfer property in a marriage contract; (vi) to achieve
gender equity; and (vii) to transfer women’s income to
assets.
Table 1. Homeownership by gender in select wards in Kathmandu Nagar Palika, 2001.
Ward number (community) Total number of home
owners examined
Total male owners
No. (per cent)
Total female owners
No. (per cent)
2 (Lajimpat area) 860 519 (60) 341 (40)
5 (Handi Gaun area) (Lajimpat area) 1,470 1,012 (69) 458 (31)
17 (Chhetrepati) 553 366 (66) 187 (34)
20 (Bhemsensthan area) 1,006 716 (71) 290 (29)
Total 3,889 2,613 (67) 1,276 (33)
Table 2. Type and nature of ownership of property (n = 193).
Variables Total respondents
with property
in Kathmandu
(n = 193)a
Type of property (percentages)
With house 18.32 (35)
With land 19.90 (38)
House with land 61.78 (118)
Mean number of years owned 13.0
How did the respondent acquire this property?
(percentages)
Gifts, will, and bought with her own earnings 18.65 (36)
Bought with her and husband’s earnings 47.15 (91)
Received from husband, in-laws and others
according to inheritance law
34.20 (66)
Respondent estimated mean value of property
owned (US$)b
37,222
a Frequencies are in parentheses.
b Exchange rate: US$1 = 73 Nepali rupees.
Rising property ownership among women in Kathmandu
© 2009 The Author(s)
Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare 285

6. To avoid sharing assets with joint family member-
s.Married men purchasing property (home or land) in
the wife’s name is a phenomenon that began in the last
40 years when development aid began to pour into
Kathmandu and migration to the city from rural areas
increased. While much of the country remains inacces-
sible by road, the transportation system improved after
the 1960s with several highways connecting with the
capital. Improved transportation also increased migra-
tion from rural to urban areas. Kathmandu has had the
highest rate of growth in population, rising from
426,000 in 1981, to 675,000 in 1991, to over one
million in 2001 (Central Bureau of Statistics, 1981,
1991, 2002). The average annual population growth
rate of Kathmandu District between 1991 and 2001 was
4.71 per cent compared with 2.25 per cent nationally.
Furthermore, in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, bilat-
eral and multilateral organisations contributed abun-
dant funds in the form of loans and aid, which improved
job opportunities both within and outside the govern-
ment sectors, and eligible individuals from across
the country descended on Kathmandu to work for the
government or non-government organisations. Subse-
quently, many young men found themselves earning a
substantial income from sources other than ancestral
property and needed ways to protect it from their sib-
lings. Historically, brothers living in a joint family had
equal rights to property acquired by any one of them.
Although property laws did not require distribution of
property among brothers if such property was pur-
chased using one’s earned income without the use of
any ancestral resources, this was difficult to prove in a
court of law if the individual was, or had been, living in
a joint-family arrangement. For example, one could
easily argue that some joint family resources were
involved in the accumulation of that wealth and, there-
fore, all members would have some rights to such prop-
erty. Thus, property acquired by a brother while living
in a joint family must be shared with all his brothers or
risk litigation.
Encroachment and litigation from siblings can be
emotionally and financially costly; thus, many men pur-
chased property in their wife’s name to pre-empt claims
by others in the joint family. Since women rarely owned
any property, Nepalese property laws provided com-
plete protection of women’s property from claims by
son(s), husband and other members of their extended
family (Pandey, 2003). Hence, the same law played a
key role in increasing wealth among women in Kath-
mandu city.
To reduce legal and closing costs of property
transfer.Market practices also supported women’s
ownership of property. One advantage of transferring a
property to a woman as a will was low closing costs.
Another advantage was that property in a woman’s
name was unencumbered, as the law stipulated, and was
protected from all claims. On the other hand, property
owned by a man was exposed to claims from brothers of
a seller up to a year (sometimes longer) after the close
of the sale. The law permitted any brothers of the seller
to buy back property at the original sale price within a
year. A male sibling had the right to buy back his share
of property even many years after the sale of that prop-
erty if he was away at the time and unaware of the sale.
To circumvent this concern, buyers often registered a
higher closing price and paid a larger closing cost so
that even if the relatives of the seller were to buy back
the property, they would have to come up with a larger
sum of money. Buyers preferred to purchase from a
woman, especially if she had absolute rights to the
property (gift, bequest or will). Such market practices
further fuelled the transfer of property to women in
urban Nepal.
To increase financial security in old age. Men may
have bought property in the wife’s name to ensure
financial security for themselves and their wife in old
age. With the crumbling of the joint family system and
absence of a universal social insurance system in
Nepal, property is used to leverage social insurance
from sons, daughters and daughters-in-law. This theme
emerged consistently in interviews with the women.
For example, a 44-year-old married female homeowner
with a 10th grade education pointed out that if a woman
has property, she will not have to suffer financially in
old age. The sons, daughters and other relatives would
take care of her. Even if they did not love her, they
would take care of her in the hope that they would
inherit some of her property.
Also, property in a wife’s name was insulated from
confiscation if the husband ever filed for bankruptcy;
the law insulated a property held by a wife from any
and all claims (Shrestha, 1999).
To strengthen women’s status. More recently, some
men bought property in their wife’s name to strengthen
her status in the joint family. Women indicated that with
property, their participation in social exchanges
increased and they gained more respect from their rela-
tives and friends.
Buying property in the wife’s name was also seen as
a way to strengthen both parties’ commitment to the
marriage. A man, a lawyer by training, who was not
living in a joint family, said that he bought their only
property in his wife’s name so that ‘she will feel secure
in our marriage’. A male university professor indicated
that men were buying property in their wife’s name not
only to avoid sharing with extended families, but also
because of an ‘induced effect’. If the wife’s female
relatives (mother, sister(s) and sister(s)-in-law) and
friends had received such property from their husbands,
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7. and if they were preparing to invest in land, they were
socially pressured to buy the property in the wife’s
name to keep up with relatives and friends, even if they
were not living in a joint family.
To achieve gender equity. Some parents had gifted a
part of their property to their daughters, with the
consent of their sons, to ensure greater equality
between sons and daughters. Others had given cash to
their daughters to help buy property. In most instances,
if money from a girl’s parents was involved, the prop-
erty was purchased in her name.
To transfer property in a marriage contract. While
this was not common, some men had used their per-
sonal earnings to purchase a home or land in their
wife’s name as part of the marriage contract. These
were generally older men, often widowers with or
without sons.
To transfer women’s income to assets. With im-
proved education of women in Kathmandu, their employ-
ment and personal income also increased. These women
were more likely to purchase property in their own name
using both their own income and that of their husband.
Are absolute property owners more engaged in
decision making than limited property owners?
Technically, women who became sole owners of prop-
erty as a result of gifts, bequests or purchase using their
own and/or their husband’s earnings enjoyed full
control over the property. Their participation in deci-
sion making could vary from that of women with
limited rights to their property. The present study exam-
ined whether these two groups of women varied demo-
graphically and if they were differently engaged in
educational, political or financial decision making.
Also examined was whether their intent to transfer their
property to the next generation of women varied by
type of property owned.
A bivariate comparison of the two groups of women
showed that of the 193 respondents, 34 per cent were
limited (or conditional) property owners while the
remaining 66 per cent were absolute property owners
(see Table 3). The two groups were similar in their
household size and number of years they had owned the
property. However, limited property owners were sig-
nificantly older and had more children than absolute
property owners.Also, property owned by limited prop-
erty owners was worth more (US$47,281) than that
owned by absolute property owners (US$33,952).
In terms of empowerment-related variables, the two
groups were generally similar (Table 3). The difference
was that a higher proportion of women with absolute
property rights had a say in household financial
management, especially in monthly expenditures,
compared with women with limited property rights.
Respondents were also asked how they wished to
dispose of their property (see Table 3). The two groups
differed statistically (c2 = 5.90; p = 0.05): women with
absolute rights to the property were more likely to dis-
tribute it equally among their sons and daughters than
were women with limited rights to the property. Also,
41 per cent of the women with absolute property rights
intended to transfer the property to whoever looked
after them in their old age or to the offspring or an
organisation they deemed deserving compared with 29
per cent of the women with limited property rights.
Furthermore, 53 per cent of the women with limited
property rights intended to pass down their property
among sons compared with 35 per cent of women with
absolute property rights.
To test if the differences in household financial deci-
sion making between the absolute property owners and
limited property owners noted in the bivariate analysis
held in a multiple regression analysis, I regressed a
summated measure of financial decision making on
various demographics, education, property value,
having a savings or checking account, and type of prop-
erty owned. The regression model was statistically sig-
nificant with F(12,177) = 11.58, p < 0.0001. The model
explained nearly 44 per cent of the variance in women’s
household decision making (see Table 4). However,
there was no difference in financial decision making
between absolute and conditional property owners
when controlling for other variables in the model. Age,
marital status, household size, having a son(s) and
number of years since the property was acquired cor-
related with financial decision making. Each one-year
increase in age significantly increased these women’s
financial decision making (b = 0.20; t = 2.27; p = 0.02).
Household size was also positively associated with
women’s financial decision making (b = 1.50; t = 4.76;
p = 0.00). Married women with property made signifi-
cantly fewer financial decisions than widows with prop-
erty (b = -11.69; t = -5.57; p = 0.00). Also, women who
had a son(s) made significantly fewer financial deci-
sions than women without a son(s) (b = -4.92; t =
-3.29; p = 0.00). Interestingly, the length of property
ownership had a negative effect on financial decision
making (b = -0.24; t = -2.51; p = 0.01).
Discussion
Women own at least a third of homes and lands in
Kathmandu Metropolitan area. Residential property is,
generally, purchased with full cash down. The title to
the property is transferred immediately from seller to
buyer. Like any capital city, real estate prices are very
high in Kathmandu. Buying land or a home, therefore,
requires a lifetime of saving and constitutes a major
Rising property ownership among women in Kathmandu
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8. Table 3. Difference between women with absolute and limited property owners.
Variables Total
(n = 193)
Women with
absolute rights
(n = 127)
Women with
limited rights
(n = 66)
c2/t-test comparison
Mean age of respondent 45 43 49 t = 3.81; p = 0.000
Mean household size 4.99 4.88 5.20 t = 1.04; p = 0.30
Mean no. of children 2.67 2.43 3.13 t = 3.57; p = 0.000
Mean no. of years property owned 12.97 12.49 13.86 t = 1.07; p = 0.28
Self-estimated mean worth of property (USr) 37,222 33,952 47,281 t = 3.46; p = 0.000
Did you receive an opportunity for education? (percentages)
Yes 78.76 (152) 79.53 (101) 77.27 (51) c2 = 0.13; p = 0.72
No 21.24 (41) 20.47 (26) 22.73 (15)
Did you vote in the most recent election? (percentages)
Yes 84.46 (163) 81.89 (104) 89.39 (59) c2 = 1.86; p = 0.17
No 15.54 (30) 18.11 (23) 10.61 (7)
Do you have a bank account(s)? (percentages)
Yes 78.76 (152) 78.74 (100) 78.79 (52) c2 = 0.00; p = 0.99
No 21.24 (41) 21.26 (27) 21.21 (14)
Who primarily manages money in your house? (percentages)
Others 20.73 (40) 15.75 (20) 30.30 (20) c2 = 6.3; p = 0.04
Myself with others 33.68 (65) 33.86 (43) 33.33 (22)
Myself 45.60 (88) 50.39 (64) 36.36 (24)
Who primarily decides on daily expenditures? (percentages)
Others 9.33 (18) 6.30 (8) 15.15 (10) c2 = 0.11; p = 0.08
Myself with others 17.10 (33) 19.69 (25) 12.12 (8)
Myself 73.58 (142) 74.02 (94) 72.73 (48)
Who primarily monitors monthly expenditures? (percentages)
Others 21.24 (41) 15.75 (20) 31.82 (21) c2 = 6.84; p = 0.03
Myself with others 47.15 (91) 49.61 (63) 42.42 (28)
Myself 31.61 (61) 34.65 (44) 25.76 (17)
Who primarily monitors major expenditures? (percentages)
Others 6.25 (12) 5.56 (7) 7.58 (5) c2 = 0.87; p = 0.64
Myself with others 89.06 (171) 88.89 (112) 89.39 (59)
Myself 4.69 (9) 5.56 (7) 3.03 (2)
Do you have debts? (percentages)
Yes 8.90 (17) 10.32 (13) 6.15 (4) c2 = 0.92; p = 0.34
No 91.10 (174) 89.68 (113) 93.85 (61)
Who will you give your property to? (percentages)
Divide equally to sons and daughters 21.88 (42) 23.81 (30) 18.18 (12) c2 = 5.90; p = 0.05
Divide equally among sons 41.15 (79) 34.92 (44) 53.03 (35)
Give to whoever takes care of me in old age or whoever I like 36.98 (71) 41.27 (52) 28.79 (19)
Table 4. Regression of financial decision-making on type of property, controlling for other factors (n = 190).
Variable name Parameter estimate Standard error t-value
Intercept 16.00*** 5.12 3.12
Caste (high caste = 1; else = 0) 1.83 1.47 1.24
Marital status (married = 1; else = 0) -11.69*** 2.10 -5.57
Born in Kathmandu (yes = 1; no = 0) -1.03 1.21 -0.85
Age of respondent 0.20* 0.09 2.27
Education
No education
10th grade or less -3.32 1.74 -1.90
>10th grade education -0.73 2.03 -0.36
Total household size 1.50*** 0.31 4.76
Has a son(s) (yes = 1; no = 0) -4.92*** 1.50 -3.29
Total worth of property (US$) 0.00 0.00 -0.38
Has checking or saving account (yes = 1; no = 0) -2.75 1.61 -1.71
No. of years since property acquired -0.24** 0.09 -2.51
Type of property (absolute = 1; conditional = 0) -0.58 1.33 -0.44
R2 = 0.44; adjusted R2 = 0.40
* p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001.
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9. investment. In this section, the discussion is framed
around the three questions posed earlier.
What factors are responsible for wealth accumulation
among urban women in Nepal?
Rooted in Manusmriti, Nepalese property laws treat sons
as the permanent member of the family and as the rightful
heirs to ancestral property because they carry on the
family name, are responsible for their sisters until mar-
riage and their parents until death, are responsible for
performing rituals associated with death and after the
death of their parents, and they inherit the family’s wealth
and debts. Thus, from birth, a son is socialised to under-
take these responsibilities. A daughter, in contrast, is a
temporary member to be gifted by her father or brother to
her husband at marriage where she gains permanent
membership status and limited entitlement to a share of
her husband’s property. As long as she has a brother, she
is not expected to take care of her birth parents in their old
age, nor does she inherit any ancestral assets or debts.
Generally, immovable assets (house or land) are reserved
for sons, while daughters receive movable assets in the
form of gifts including jewellery, clothing or cash at
marriage. As a result, Nepalese women in general own
meagre immovable assets. In urban areas of Nepal,
however, women are slowly gaining an edge in property
ownership; these women may make different choices for
themselves and for their daughters in their education,
health and overall wellbeing.
Four factors are central to understanding how the
change in property rights institutions and urban
women’s increased prosperity came about in Nepal.
First is the change in how the wealth was created. In a
land-based economy like Nepal, historically, the main
source of income was land. Until recently, much of the
income and assets were generated from ancestral prop-
erty, and all the men in the family were entitled to such
property, which was passed down from one generation
of men to the next.
Since the 1960s, development aid to Nepal has
increased, as has the migration of men from rural to
urban areas. As a result, men’s income from sources
outside of land (such as business and employment) has
increased. A desire to secure some of the self-earned
wealth from siblings gave rise to new institutions and
ways of transferring property. Men found ways to
secure their wealth by buying property in their wife’s
name.
Second, the transfer of property to women began
under existing laws that not only insured increased pro-
tection of property, but also reduced the costs of the
transaction. Property rights institutions gave women
absolute protection of their wealth because, historically,
very few women owned or received land or a house
in the form of a gift, bequest or will. When such
opportunity arose, the law made the transfer less
expensive by keeping the closing costs minimal. Once
acquired, women enjoyed absolute rights to such
property under the law.
Men who engaged in buying property in their wife’s
name were aware of the loopholes in the existing laws
and knew how to take advantage of them to protect their
wealth. Thus, transfer of property to women started as a
strategy to accumulate wealth by protecting property
from siblings, insulating it from government investiga-
tion and allowing it to appreciate over time. The exist-
ing institutions of property transfer and the market were
not in conflict with these practices. Indeed, the institu-
tions not only allowed women to acquire property, but
also the transaction (or closing) costs and property-
related litigations were substantially reduced. As a
result, a substantial number of married men consoli-
dated their wealth and bought property in their wife’s
name.
Later, when the government realised that such trans-
fers were occurring more frequently, the cost of the
transaction was changed by instituting a regular amount
in closing costs even in a transfer of property to women
in the form of a will or bequest. Increased closing costs,
however, did not deter men from transferring property
to women, because of other advantages discussed in
this article.
Third, social resistance was minimal, although the
transfer of property to a wife may have contributed to
conflict in a joint family. The party that was supposedly
harmed the most (or could have felt betrayed) was the
male sibling(s). Anecdotal evidence suggests that in
some instances, the relationship between brothers
soured as a result of the purchase of property by one of
the brothers in his wife’s name. But instigating a legal
case against one’s sister-in-law who had legally
received property through a will or bequest was diffi-
cult. Instead, it appears that other brothers may have
resorted to buying property in their own wives’ name.
Thus, the overall benefits of these practices were posi-
tive for both men and women. Men found a safe place
to park their money so that it would appreciate more
over time. Women with property felt greater financial
security and enjoyed added respect in their family and
community. The transfer of property to women received
a further boost as more women gained an education,
employment and income.
Fourth, the experiences of property ownership
among women triggered further change in the legisla-
tion. This study shows that new institutions have arisen
as a result of bargaining power among the elites
(Knight, 1992). By the 1990s, many women in Kath-
mandu owned property; it was no longer a new idea.
Women were encouraged to challenge the discrimina-
tory laws that existed in property transfer. In 1993,
a group of women filed a case in the Supreme
Rising property ownership among women in Kathmandu
© 2009 The Author(s)
Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare 289

10. Court demanding that the National Civil Code be
amended to give equal rights over ancestral property to
both sons and daughters. This resulted in the passage of
the 2002 amendment to property rights law.
At the time of this study, the 2002 amendment was
being evaluated. The respondents clearly saw the
benefit of women’s ownership of property and were
forceful about their equal rights to property owned by
their husband. They had mixed feelings, however, and
were conflicted about seeking equal inheritance rights
to their parents’ property after marriage. About half of
the women favoured equal entitlement to ancestral
property while the remaining half were concerned that
such a legislation would ruin societal values, norms and
practices. Their concerns pertained to a number of
issues. Many women worried about weakening a sac-
rosanct relationship between brothers and sisters.
Others thought that dividing the father’s property
equally among sons and daughters was against soci-
ety’s values. Some women expressed concern about
debt responsibility in case the parents had debts but
little or no property. Still other women preferred edu-
cation over receiving property; these women saw prop-
erty as expendable whereas education was a permanent
asset. Those who favoured inheritance rights for daugh-
ters believed that property would empower women in
general.
In the end, the 2002 legislation reflected the conflict-
ing sentiments that the women in this study shared. The
law continued to favour sons as the rightful heirs to
ancestral property, while substantially expanding
women’s rights to the husband’s property.
Why is the transfer of property to women an urban
phenomenon?
This study shows that institutions change when there is
a demand among strategic players for change. In Nepal,
for over 100 years the laws pertaining to property rights
for women did not change. This study, and many other
studies around the world, delineate that property laws
are directly or indirectly male-biased, and therefore
legal reform is a continuing struggle. Even when the
formal rules change, informal rules, customs, tradi-
tions, codes of conduct may remain unchanged because
they are ‘much more impervious to deliberate policies’
(North, 1990: 6). This is precisely why the rise in prop-
erty ownership among women in Nepal is a uniquely
urban phenomenon, whereas rural women continue to
lack access to productive assets. Even after the 2002
amendment, women’s wealth in rural Nepal has not
changed as dramatically as in the urban areas, because
the sources of income in rural areas are tied to ancestral
land. Moreover, in the 2002 amendment, formal and
informal institutions regarding ancestral land continue
to favour sons over daughters. Traditional values and
beliefs that sons and not daughters carry the family
name and responsibility, including family debts, have a
very strong hold in Nepalese society. Therefore,
although property laws allow women to inherit paternal
property, they may continue for some time to rely on
their husband, their own income and gifts to accumulate
property in their name. All of these practices favour
urban women over their counterparts in rural areas.
Do absolute property owners engage in financial
decisions more than conditional property owners?
Theliteratureemphasisesthatforwomentofeelempow-
ered, not only must they own assets, but they also must
have a say in their disposition (Agarwal, 1994a). In the
present study, the nature of assets ownership did not
matter in financial decision making, controlling for
other demographic, human capital and assets-related
variables. This finding implies that absolute property
owners are not exercising more decisions than condi-
tional property owners. Interestingly, other factors – age,
marital status, household size and having a son(s) –
determined women’s contribution to financial decision
making. If men (husband or son) were present in the
house, the women property owners engaged signifi-
cantly less in financial decisions, thus preserving the
traditional gender role in fiscal judgement.
Conclusion
This study has a number of limitations. First, Ward-
level property ownership data were available for only
four Wards. Second, the sample for the structured inter-
views was not randomly selected. Sample selection was
based primarily on the interviewers’ personal contacts.
Third, a majority of the respondents were socio-
economically privileged women, further limiting the
study’s generalisability. Finally, the interviewers had
different educational and employment backgrounds,
which may have introduced some interviewer-related
bias.
Despite these limitations, this is the first study to
document that property ownership among women in
Kathmandu is rising. Although women’s property
rights continue to be organised around men and mar-
riage, many women now own property. For a host of
reasons discussed in this article, married men are sup-
porting property accumulation among their wives, and
these women are more likely to transfer some of their
property to their daughters. Also, as more women gain
education and earnings, their ability to buy and own
property will increase. Better still, the legal amendment
in 2002 may further boost the asset status of urban
women. The challenge for Nepal is how to increase
property holdings among rural women. Future studies
should evaluate if property holdings among rural
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11. women have changed after the 2002 amendment and if
(and how) the allocation of intra-household resources
and individual bargaining power have changed because
of improvement in property rights institutions.
Acknowledgement
The first version of this article was prepared to present
as a paper at the International Conference on Asset
Building and Social Development, September 9–12,
2004, Shandong University, Jinan, China.
This study was supported by funds from the Ford Foun-
dation, Center for Social Development, and the George
Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington
University, St Louis, USA. Several Master of Social
Work (MSW) students were helpful in translating,
entering and analysing the data for this article. In par-
ticular, the author would like to thank Gyanesh Lama,
Pratima Pandey and Jeungkun Kim.
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