The right to work and to live
The implications of India's NREGS program for missing women
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10763381 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Trupti Chaure (Department of Economics University of Oklahoma Norman Oklahoma USA), Daniel Hicks (0000-0002-1722-4970, Department of Economics University of Oklahoma Norman Oklahoma USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 102 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 2528-2551 |
| Publication date | 2021-11-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Science Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-4941 • E-ISSN: 1540-6237 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/ssqu.12993 |
| OpenAlex | W3201657358 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 16 |
Objective Limited economic opportunity for women reduces their household bargaining power and the economic value of daughters, amplifying son preference. This paper studies India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), the largest workfare program in the world. Methods In a setting where the gender gap in employment and wages are sizeable, NREGS represented both an income shock and a large relative improvement in the labor market for women. We use the staggered rollout of NREGS to show that districts that implemented the program earlier experienced an improvement in child sex ratios in favor of girls. Results We find that impacts exist only in rural areas, not in the urban counterparts of the same district, where NREGS did not operate. Furthermore, effects are larger in middle‐income and upper income districts and districts with the most skewed initial sex ratios, results which are inconsistent with an alternative selection story. Finally, the effects appear only for rural youth sex ratios, not for adult sex ratios, suggesting endogenous migration is not driving the results. Conclusion Our results suggest that the adoption of NREGS may have decreased pressures associated with sex selection in India, lessening skewed sex ratios in rural areas
Bargaining power · Demographic economics · Economics · Labour economics · Political science · Population · Preference · Rural area · Selection bias · Sex ratio · Sex selection · Shock (circulatory) · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Welfare · Work (physics) · Workfare · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Demography · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare
Labor Market Effects of Social Programs
Mostly Harmless Econometrics
The Roots of Gender Inequality in Developing Countries
Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour
Missing Women and the Price of Tea in China
Why is Son preference so persistent in East and South Asia? a cross-country study of China, India and the Republic of Korea
Can public works increase equilibrium wages? Evidence from India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee
Women's Participation in the NREGA
| Highly cited | No |
|---|