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Women's enrollment in colleges in developing countries is staggeringly low. Due to cultural norms and safety concerns, women may not be allowed to enroll. Alternatively, local colleges might be in short supply. Using the variation in college construction in India under a college construction grant policy, we assess whether increased access to colleges in home districts improves human capital outcomes for women. We find an improvement in educational and other development outcomes. The educational gains accruing to women are twice as large as for men. The benefits accrue to the rural women but do not spillover to the neighboring districts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the implications of son preference on birth spacing intervals in India. Sibling sex composition provides a credible source of exogenous variation in the Indian context for births on or before 1990, as sex screening became widespread only after the 1990 economic reforms. I use the sibling sex composition of the first two children to capture its impact on the third birth interval. My analysis shows that, on average, families with two sons face an 8% lower hazard of a third birth relative to families with two daughters. Moreover, I find three channels of heterogeneity: religion, mother's age, and state of residence. Respondents from diverse religious groups respond differently to the sibling composition of the first two births regarding their likelihood of riskier births for the third interval. Moreover, older mothers with at least one son are less likely to have a shorter third birth interval than younger cohorts of mothers. Finally, the respondent's state of residence also drives some heterogeneity, with mothers from non-southern states less likely to have a riskier third birth interval once they have had at least one son among the first two births. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study whether legal restrictions on prenatal discrimination against females leads to a shift by parents towards postnatal discrimination, focusing on the impact on educational attainment. We exploit the differentially timed introduction of a ban on sex-selective abortions across states in India. We find that a legal restriction on abortions led to an increase in the number of females born, as well as a widening in the gender gap in educational attainment. Females born in states affected by the ban are 2.3, 3.5, and 3.2 percentage points less likely to complete grade 10, complete grade 12, and enter university, respectively, relative to males. These effects are concentrated among non-wealthy households that lacked the resources to evade the ban. Investigating mechanisms, we find that the relative reduction in investments in female education was not driven by family size but because surviving females became relatively unwanted, whereas surviving males became relatively more valued, leading to an increasing concentration of household resources on them. Discrimination is amplified among higher-order births and among females with relatively few sisters. Finally, these negative effects exist despite the existence of a marriage market channel through which parents increase investments in their daughters' education to increase the probability that they make a high-quality match. This suggests that policymakers need to address the unintended welfare consequences of interventions aimed at promoting gender equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restrictive social norms and strategic constraints imposed by family members can limit women's access to and benefits from social networks, especially in patrilocal societies. We characterize young married women's social networks in rural India and analyze how inter‐generational power dynamics within the household affect their network formation. Using primary data from Uttar Pradesh, we show that co‐residence with the mother‐in‐law is negatively correlated with her daughter‐in‐law's mobility and ability to form social connections outside the household, especially those related to health, fertility, and family planning. Our findings suggest that the mother‐in‐law's restrictive behavior is potentially driven by the misalignment of fertility preferences between the mother‐in‐law and the daughter‐in‐law. The lack of peers outside the household lowers the daughter‐in‐law's likelihood of visiting a family planning clinic and of using modern contraception. We find suggestive evidence that this is because outside peers (a) positively influence daughter‐in‐law's beliefs about the social acceptability of family planning and (b) enable the daughter‐in‐law to overcome mobility constraints by accompanying her to health clinics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using income from nationally representative household surveys and district as the lowest level of aggregation, we examine the role of spatial factors in determining income inequality in India. In both rural and urban India, we find that within-district income differences account for majority of the income inequality in 2011. Moreover, between-state income differences are more important in explaining between-district inequality in rural India. In contrast, in urban areas it is the within-state income differences that play a more important role in explaining the between-district inequality. We find significantly smaller level of inequality but similar trends using the consumption expenditure. Finally, using data for 1993 and 2011, we find that although majority of the income inequality in rural India is explained by within-district income difference in both years, over time the share of between-district differences has increased and they account for a third of the total increase in rural income inequality between 1993 and 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The affirmative action policy for socially and economically backward communities in employment has been a debated issue in India. In this context, this paper aims to analyze the level of inequality by distinguishing between ‘circumstance’ and ‘effort’ factors in the Roemer’s framework on equality of opportunity. We measure inequality of opportunities due to two circumstances: caste and religion. Our empirical analysis, at state-level, utilizes a recent household survey data, which provides information related to efforts as well as circumstances of workers. The paper estimated inequality in the labour market and then decomposed it to know the circumstances that cause income inequality. Our estimates indicated that inequality and inequality of opportunity is substantially higher in India. Specifically, the outcome of our analysis evidently indicated that the socially backward communities do have economically disadvantageous position in some of the Indian states. However, the degree of circumstances based on inequality varies to a great extent among the states. Therefore, we suggest that the country does not need a nation-level affirmative action policy instead a state-level policy could be more appropriate as the intensity of the problem differ significantly among the Indian states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an experiment in non-formal schools in Indian slums, a reward scheme for attending a target number of school days increased average attendance when the scheme was in place, but had heterogeneous effects after it was removed. Among students with high baseline attendance, the incentive had no effect on attendance after it was discontinued, and test scores were unaffected. Among students with low baseline attendance, the incentive lowered post-incentive attendance, and test scores decreased. For these students, the incentive was also associated with lower interest in school material and lower optimism and confidence about their ability. This suggests incentives might have unintended long-term consequences for the very students they are designed to help the most. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the 2004-2005 India Human Development Survey data, we estimate and decompose the earnings of household businesses owned by historically marginalized social groups known as Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SCSTs) and non-SCSTs across the earnings distribution. We find clear differences in characteristics between the two types of businesses with the former faring significantly worse. The mean decomposition reveals that as much as 55 % of the caste earnings gap could be attributed to the unexplained component. Quantile regressions suggest that gaps are higher at lower deciles, providing some evidence of a sticky floor. Finally, quantile decompositions reveal that the unexplained component is greater at the lower and middle deciles than higher, suggesting that SCST-owned businesses at the lower and middle end of the conditional earnings distribution face greater discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given urban areas contribute to more than 65 % of India's gross domestic product (GDP), the sustainability of the rapid 8-9 % GDP growth India has experienced in the last decade, is dependent to a large extent on urban areas. With migration being one of the important factors contributing to the growth of urban population, we attempt to understand whether it is push (out of the rural area) or pull (toward the urban area due to its perceived benefits) which explains migration in India, taking the case of Bangalore, which has one of the largest proportions of in-migrants to total population. An examination of these factors is done using a primary survey of migrants in Bangalore. Using a probit model, we find that the lower the level of education of the migrant, the greater the importance of the push factors whereas with increasing level of education of the migrant, pull factors become more important in migration. Women are more likely to be 'pulled' toward urban areas. We find migrants from within Karnataka are 'pushed'. This suggests that nonfarm employment opportunities have to be increased, rural infrastructure improved, and the development of small and medium towns encouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]