Emily Rains
Biographic Data
| ID | 4371245 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Emily Rains |
| GIVEN NAMES | Emily |
| FAMILY NAME | Rains |
| SIGNATURE | RAINS E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Tulane University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6053-8425 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 57 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 13 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The gender digital divide and gender gaps in protest participation
Research shows women are less likely to protest than men and have relatively less access to cellphones than men. While a burgeoning body of research indicates cellphones can boost protest participation, scholars have overlooked potential gender differences in protest mobilization. Given this lacuna and the well-known gender disparities in communications technology, we examine whether the gender gap in mobile ownership influences gender difference…
Gatekeeping Women’s Property Rights
While governments and development agencies have prioritised formalising property rights over the past few decades, evidence on the gendered impacts of these efforts – particularly in urban and peri-urban settings – remains limited. This article builds on a large-scale land formalisation intervention in Mozambique to examine how documentation is associated with individual-level outcomes for women and men. Drawing on cross-sectional endline survey …
Toward a Local View of Between-Group Inequality
How is between-group inequality related to collective action in broker-mediated patronage systems? Research typically examines between-group inequality at coarse scales, like countries, but I argue that hyper-local neighborhood context conditions politically relevant outcomes. Using original household survey data from over 200 Indian informal settlements, with social network data from a subset, I show local inequality between caste (jati) groups …
(When) Does Informal Labor Close Political Gender Gaps? Theory and Evidence from Urban India
There is a well-established link between women’s labor force and political participation. However, most of this literature focuses on women’s participation in the formal economy in high-income countries, while the vast majority of employed women in poorer countries work in the informal economy in positions that provide far fewer resources, networks, and skill-building opportunities than those in the formal economy. This article examines how women…
Gender Stereotypes across Electoral Contexts
A Range of Informality Across Cities and Slums
This article proposes a framework for understanding why slum residents are particularly vulnerable to economic downturns. We centre evidence from Bihar’s capital city, Patna, to examine how downturns are experienced more severely in some cities and slums than others. We argue slums are zones of pervasive informality, remaining largely disconnected from formal institutions and dependent on discretionary supports. But the extent of informality, and…
It’s Like Night and Day”
Research characterizes public assistance programs as stigmatizing and stressful (e.g., psychological costs) but obscures differences across programs or the features of policy design that contribute to varied bureaucratic encounters. Using 83 interviews with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and Medicaid beneficiaries, and 60 interviews with staff from t…
Informal Work, Risk, and Clientelism
Most of the poor in the developing world work in the informal economy, that is, in occupations that take place outside of the legal system of taxing, spending, and regulating. This article examines how informal work impacts the policy and electoral preferences of the poor. We emphasize the importance of the risks inherent in informal employment in shaping the responsiveness of citizens to clientelism and their policy and voting preferences. Since…
An evolving threat to life and livelihoods
How has COVID-19 affected the urban poor across cities and over time? This research note serves as a follow-up to an earlier study on the impacts of the first wave of the pandemic on informal settlements in two Indian cities. This note draws on additional interviews with key informants from 20 settlements to compare the economic and health impacts of the first two major waves of the pandemic in Bengaluru and Patna, as well as respondents’ attitud…
A threat to life and livelihoods
Taking advantage of our existing dataset of 6,721 slum households in two Indian cities, we undertook six rounds of follow-up phone interviews on the impact of COVID-19 between July and November 2020 with three key informants in each of 40 diverse slums. These cities showed contrasting health effects resulting from the first major wave of the COVID-19 pandemic – no deaths and nearly no illnesses were reported in Patna, while there was widespread l…
Negotiating Informality– Ambiguity, Intermediation, and a Patchwork of Outcomes in Slums of Bengaluru
In developing countries, procedural ambiguity due to bureaucratic overlap and political discretion gives rise to divergence between law and practice. In this context of pervasive informality, it is important to consider how local negotiations produce disparate outcomes. We examine these local negotiations to explain how informal property rights are acquired and how markets operate in the slums of Bengaluru, India. Drawing on original interview an…
Precarious gains
Combining satellite and survey data to study Indian slums
Projections suggest that most of the global growth in population in the next few decades will be in urban centres in Asia and Africa. Most of these additional urban residents will be concentrated in slums. However, government documentation of slums is incomplete and unreliable, and many slums remain undocumented. It is necessary to employ creative methods to locate and sample these understudied populations. We used satellite image analysis and fi…
It’s Like Night and Day”
Research characterizes public assistance programs as stigmatizing and stressful (e.g., psychological costs) but obscures differences across programs or the features of policy design that contribute to varied bureaucratic encounters. Using 83 interviews with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and Medicaid beneficiaries, and 60 interviews with staff from t…
Combining satellite and survey data to study Indian slums
Projections suggest that most of the global growth in population in the next few decades will be in urban centres in Asia and Africa. Most of these additional urban residents will be concentrated in slums. However, government documentation of slums is incomplete and unreliable, and many slums remain undocumented. It is necessary to employ creative methods to locate and sample these understudied populations. We used satellite image analysis and fi…
Precarious gains
Informal Work, Risk, and Clientelism
Most of the poor in the developing world work in the informal economy, that is, in occupations that take place outside of the legal system of taxing, spending, and regulating. This article examines how informal work impacts the policy and electoral preferences of the poor. We emphasize the importance of the risks inherent in informal employment in shaping the responsiveness of citizens to clientelism and their policy and voting preferences. Since…
A threat to life and livelihoods
Taking advantage of our existing dataset of 6,721 slum households in two Indian cities, we undertook six rounds of follow-up phone interviews on the impact of COVID-19 between July and November 2020 with three key informants in each of 40 diverse slums. These cities showed contrasting health effects resulting from the first major wave of the COVID-19 pandemic – no deaths and nearly no illnesses were reported in Patna, while there was widespread l…
A Range of Informality Across Cities and Slums
This article proposes a framework for understanding why slum residents are particularly vulnerable to economic downturns. We centre evidence from Bihar’s capital city, Patna, to examine how downturns are experienced more severely in some cities and slums than others. We argue slums are zones of pervasive informality, remaining largely disconnected from formal institutions and dependent on discretionary supports. But the extent of informality, and…
An evolving threat to life and livelihoods
How has COVID-19 affected the urban poor across cities and over time? This research note serves as a follow-up to an earlier study on the impacts of the first wave of the pandemic on informal settlements in two Indian cities. This note draws on additional interviews with key informants from 20 settlements to compare the economic and health impacts of the first two major waves of the pandemic in Bengaluru and Patna, as well as respondents’ attitud…
Combining satellite and survey data to study Indian slums
Projections suggest that most of the global growth in population in the next few decades will be in urban centres in Asia and Africa. Most of these additional urban residents will be concentrated in slums. However, government documentation of slums is incomplete and unreliable, and many slums remain undocumented. It is necessary to employ creative methods to locate and sample these understudied populations. We used satellite image analysis and fi…
Negotiating Informality– Ambiguity, Intermediation, and a Patchwork of Outcomes in Slums of Bengaluru
In developing countries, procedural ambiguity due to bureaucratic overlap and political discretion gives rise to divergence between law and practice. In this context of pervasive informality, it is important to consider how local negotiations produce disparate outcomes. We examine these local negotiations to explain how informal property rights are acquired and how markets operate in the slums of Bengaluru, India. Drawing on original interview an…
Precarious gains
A threat to life and livelihoods
Taking advantage of our existing dataset of 6,721 slum households in two Indian cities, we undertook six rounds of follow-up phone interviews on the impact of COVID-19 between July and November 2020 with three key informants in each of 40 diverse slums. These cities showed contrasting health effects resulting from the first major wave of the COVID-19 pandemic – no deaths and nearly no illnesses were reported in Patna, while there was widespread l…
An evolving threat to life and livelihoods
How has COVID-19 affected the urban poor across cities and over time? This research note serves as a follow-up to an earlier study on the impacts of the first wave of the pandemic on informal settlements in two Indian cities. This note draws on additional interviews with key informants from 20 settlements to compare the economic and health impacts of the first two major waves of the pandemic in Bengaluru and Patna, as well as respondents’ attitud…
A Range of Informality Across Cities and Slums
This article proposes a framework for understanding why slum residents are particularly vulnerable to economic downturns. We centre evidence from Bihar’s capital city, Patna, to examine how downturns are experienced more severely in some cities and slums than others. We argue slums are zones of pervasive informality, remaining largely disconnected from formal institutions and dependent on discretionary supports. But the extent of informality, and…
It’s Like Night and Day”
Research characterizes public assistance programs as stigmatizing and stressful (e.g., psychological costs) but obscures differences across programs or the features of policy design that contribute to varied bureaucratic encounters. Using 83 interviews with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and Medicaid beneficiaries, and 60 interviews with staff from t…
Informal Work, Risk, and Clientelism
Most of the poor in the developing world work in the informal economy, that is, in occupations that take place outside of the legal system of taxing, spending, and regulating. This article examines how informal work impacts the policy and electoral preferences of the poor. We emphasize the importance of the risks inherent in informal employment in shaping the responsiveness of citizens to clientelism and their policy and voting preferences. Since…
(When) Does Informal Labor Close Political Gender Gaps? Theory and Evidence from Urban India
There is a well-established link between women’s labor force and political participation. However, most of this literature focuses on women’s participation in the formal economy in high-income countries, while the vast majority of employed women in poorer countries work in the informal economy in positions that provide far fewer resources, networks, and skill-building opportunities than those in the formal economy. This article examines how women…
Gender Stereotypes across Electoral Contexts
The gender digital divide and gender gaps in protest participation
Research shows women are less likely to protest than men and have relatively less access to cellphones than men. While a burgeoning body of research indicates cellphones can boost protest participation, scholars have overlooked potential gender differences in protest mobilization. Given this lacuna and the well-known gender disparities in communications technology, we examine whether the gender gap in mobile ownership influences gender difference…
Gatekeeping Women’s Property Rights
While governments and development agencies have prioritised formalising property rights over the past few decades, evidence on the gendered impacts of these efforts – particularly in urban and peri-urban settings – remains limited. This article builds on a large-scale land formalisation intervention in Mozambique to examine how documentation is associated with individual-level outcomes for women and men. Drawing on cross-sectional endline survey …
Toward a Local View of Between-Group Inequality
How is between-group inequality related to collective action in broker-mediated patronage systems? Research typically examines between-group inequality at coarse scales, like countries, but I argue that hyper-local neighborhood context conditions politically relevant outcomes. Using original household survey data from over 200 Indian informal settlements, with social network data from a subset, I show local inequality between caste (jati) groups …
Economics (8 works) · Economic growth (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Population (7 works) · Slum (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Geography (6 works) · Urban and Rural Development Challenges (6 works) · Politics (5 works) · Socioeconomics (5 works)