Why are educated women less likely to be employed in India? Testing competing hypotheses

In this paper we use the Indian National Sample Survey data for 1993-94 to examine the relationship between women's education and labor force participation. While it has been recognized in the literature that education is associated with lower labor force participation for women in South Asia, the reasons behind this association are less well understood. Two competing theories potentially explain this phenomenon - one based on cultural factors and the other on labor market options. Cultural arguments suggest that women's withdrawal from labor force is associated with improvement in the social status of the family. Higher status families choose to educate their daughters, but at the same time, restrict their independence through labor force withdrawal. In contrast, structural arguments suggest that educated women - like educated men - prefer white collar jobs. Since formal sector jobs only comprise 7 percent of all jobs, opportunities for these desirable jobs is limited, resulting in labor force withdrawal of women. We propose empirical tests to examine whether job availability or patriarchal controls play an important role in shaping this relationship. Our results suggest that cultural factors appear to be less important than lack of employment opportunities.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Primary Education,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Gender and Education,Environmental Economics&Policies

Children at Risk: The role of family structure in Latin America and West Africa

Models of the family proposed by the "new household economics" have had a strong influence on researchers and policymakers alike. In extending these models to developing countries, however, relatively little attention has been directed to the applicability of some of their underlying assumptions in diverse cultural settings. Two aspects of these models seem particularly problematic: the assumption of a cohesive family unit with perfect altruism within the family, and lack of consideration of flexible boundaries of the household observed in many cultures. Using data on the nutritional status of children in northeast Brazil, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic in Latin America, and in Ghana, Mali, and Senegal in West Africa, this article examines the importance of these two issues in predicting the level of resources available to children. Although parents care about the welfare of their children, their level of altruism varies across different types of families and seems to depend on culturally acceptable practices

Does participation in self-help groups empower Indian women?

The number of self-help groups (SHG) promoted under the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) is 2,820,967 (October 2016). Social movements literature suggests that women’s agency and sense of self-worth is enhanced by participation in collective action. This poster/policy brief provides at-a-glance results of the programme. SHG members are more likely to be bank account holders and participate in paid work and non-farm business activity. SHG members are also less likely to use the veil or be the last one in the family to eat. They also have some say in what to cook - bargaining within traditional gendered division of labor

Gender inequalities and household fuel choice in India

The use of solid cooking fuels—wood, straw, crop residue, and cow-dung cakes—is associated with higher levels of environmental pollution and health burden. However, even in an era when incomes have grown and poverty has declined, the proportion of Indian households using clean cooking fuels such as kerosene or Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) has increased only slightly. Even among the wealthiest quintile, only about 40 percent of the households rely solely on clean fuel. Since the chores of cooking and collection of fuel remain primarily the domain of women, we argue that intra-household gender inequalities play an important role in shaping the household decision to invest in clean fuel. Analyses using data from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), a panel survey of over 41,000 households conducted in two waves in 2004-05 and 2011–12, respectively, show that women’s access to salaried work and control over household expenditure decisions is associated with the use of clean fuel

Land live : land ownership in rural India and intra household exchanges

The study examines the role of land ownership in shaping the well-being of older Indians by using data from the India Human Development Survey II (IHDS-II). In a society structured around extended households it focuses on the exchanges between parents and adult children in order to explore possible financial motives involved in elder care. Three aspects of well-being are considered: co-residence, medical expenditure and decision-making power within the household.US National Institutes of HealthUK Department of International DevelopmentFord FoundationWorld Ban

Determinants of private healthcare utilisation and expenditure patterns in India

In India, a substantial investment has been made in developing community-based programmes, such as Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), and networks of village-level health workers. In spite of these efforts, growth utilisation of government services has failed to keep pace with the private sector, particularly in the past two decades. The results presented in this paper show that Indian families, even poor families, receive most of their medical care from private practitioners. Maternity care is a partial exception here. For most other forms of care, however, the public sector is dwarfed by the reliance on the private sector, even though the quality of private sector providers and services remains highly variable

Determinants of private healthcare utilisation and expenditure patterns in India

In India, a substantial investment has been made in developing community-based programmes, such as Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), and networks of village-level health workers. In spite of these efforts, growth utilisation of government services has failed to keep pace with the private sector, particularly in the past two decades. The results presented in this paper show that Indian families, even poor families, receive most of their medical care from private practitioners. Maternity care is a partial exception here. For most other forms of care, however, the public sector is dwarfed by the reliance on the private sector, even though the quality of private sector providers and services remains highly variable

Indian paradox : rising education, declining women’s employment

The study uses the first comprehensive Indian income data to evaluate whether the “other family income” effect explains the negative relationship between women’s education and labor force participation. In India, women’s education has a U-shaped relationship with labor force participation. This has been attributed to an income effect whereby women with more education marry into richer families that enable them to withdraw from the labor force. Results suggest that another factor at play is occupational sex segregation, which excludes moderately educated Indian women from clerical and sales jobs

Village transportation infrastructure and women’s non-agricultural employment in India : the conditioning role of community gender context

Using data from the India Human Development Survey (2005, 2012) the study explores the impact of village transportation conditions on women’s participation in non-agricultural work. Findings show that access by roads and frequent bus services positively influence men’s and women’s participation in non-agricultural work. Similar effects are found for women and men. The positive impact of transportation infrastructure on women’s non-farm employment is stronger in communities with more egalitarian gender norms. Other research shows that the earned income from non-farm work boosts women’s control over resources, decision making power, and child welfare.US National Institutes of HealthUK Department of International DevelopmentFord FoundationWorld Ban

Aligning household decision-making with work and education: A comparative analysis of women's empowerment

Background: Although women's empowerment is one of the key concepts in development, it has proven challenging to measure it. Empirical studies have tended to focus on a cause-and-effect analysis of empowerment and using composite measures to compare different national contexts. More recent works suggest new conceptual and methodological approaches to women's empowerment that better reflect contextual factors, intersectionality, and life course perspectives. Objective: We conduct cross-national comparative research on women's empowerment using a new approach: by examining how women's household decision-making power, education, and work - major components of empowerment - relate to each other across 28 low- and middle-income countries. Through this, we explore what the different relationships might imply for women's empowerment in different contexts and circumstances. Methods: We utilize latent class analysis, a person-centered approach, to identify an unobserved class membership structure that classifies women into typologies to account for the different contexts and multidimensionality of women's empowerment within and between countries. Results: We find substantial within-country differences in household decision-making power and how this aligns with women's education and work. Across countries, we find work and education are not always positively associated with each other or with decision-making power, which suggests a need to contextualize the associations within the different dimensions of women's empowerment. Contribution: Our analysis provides a nuanced examination of empowerment and reveals a spectrum of women differently situated in each country and across different countries, which is often obscured in previous research