Female Political Representation and Labor Force Participation in India
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Female participation in the labor force in India has been declining since the 1980s despite lower fertility rates, higher female educational attainment, and strong economic growth of the country. The most recent estimates suggest that only 27 percent of women in India are in the labor force, as compared to 56 percent of women in the United States. This study investigates the effect of a government policy of mandated female political representation on female labor force participation in India. I find that an additional year of district-level female chairperson has a small but significant negative effect on female labor force participation. The effect is more pronounced for rural, low-caste women. The decrease may be due to a wealth increase in which women decide to leave the labor force who previously had no choice but to work. I find small but significant increases in household-level monthly consumer expenditure and land owned, which support the hypothesis of a wealth increase. Although the policy’s effect on female labor force participation is concerning, the increase in household wealth makes it difficult to discern the policy’s overall impact on female welfare. Female labor force participation has been shown to be important for women’s empowerment and overall economic growth, but further investigation into the nature of women’s employment and the factors affecting women’s decisions to enter the labor force will provide a clearer understanding of the policy’s effect on women.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | May 3, 2019 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Mulaney, Annika |
|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Dupas, Pascaline |
Subjects
| Subject | Department of Economics |
|---|---|
| Subject | female labor supply |
| Subject | political representation |
| Subject | gender equality |
| Subject | gender quotas |
| Subject | female empowerment |
| Subject | labor force participation |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
| Related item | |
|---|---|
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/bt292qp8660 |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Mulaney, Annika. (2019). Female Political Representation and Labor Force Participation in India. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/bt292qp8660
Collection
Stanford University, Department of Economics, Honors Theses
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- Contact
- amulaney@gmail.com
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