IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cge/wacage/46.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Empowering Women: Inheritance Rights and Female Education in India

Author

Listed:
  • Roy, Sanchari

    (University of Warwick)

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of property inheritance rights on education of women. Using plausibly exogenous variation created by amendments to female inheritance laws in India, I nd that exposure to improved inheritance rights increased mean female educational attainment by approximately one additional year. I also provide suggestive evidence that the mechanism behind such an e ect may be explained by the existence of complementarity between female inheritance rights and education in the context of household property management rather than by a relaxation of the household budget constraint owing to reduction in dowry payments following the reform.

Suggested Citation

  • Roy, Sanchari, 2011. "Empowering Women: Inheritance Rights and Female Education in India," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 46, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cge:wacage:46
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/46.2011_roy_revised.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rao, Vijayendra, 1993. "The Rising Price of Husbands: A Hedonic Analysis of Dowry Increases in Rural India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(4), pages 666-677, August.
    2. Esther Duflo, 2001. "Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 795-813, September.
    3. Besley, Timothy & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2010. "Property Rights and Economic Development," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4525-4595, Elsevier.
    4. Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Otsuka, Keijiro, 2001. "Land Inheritance and Schooling in Matrilineal Societies: Evidence from Sumatra," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(12), pages 2093-2110, December.
    5. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1992. "Does School Quality Matter? Returns to Education and the Characteristics of Public Schools in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 1-40, February.
    6. Rafael Di Tella & Sebastian Galiant & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2007. "The Formation of Beliefs: Evidence from the Allocation of Land Titles to Squatters," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 209-241.
    7. Jere R. Behrman & Andrew D. Foster & Mark R. Rosenzweig & Prem Vashishtha, 1999. "Women's Schooling, Home Teaching, and Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(4), pages 682-714, August.
    8. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Paul J. Gertler & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2002. "Empowerment and Efficiency: Tenancy Reform in West Bengal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 239-280, April.
    9. Deininger, Klaus & Goyal, Aparajita & Nagarajan, Hari, 2010. "Inheritance law reform and women's access to capital : evidence from India's Hindu succession act," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5338, The World Bank.
    10. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Stark, Oded, 1989. "Consumption Smoothing, Migration, and Marriage: Evidence from Rural India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 905-926, August.
    11. Siwan Anderson, 2003. "Why Dowry Payments Declined with Modernization in Europe but Are Rising in India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(2), pages 269-310, April.
    12. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    13. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1, July.
    14. Andrew D. Foster & Mark R. Rosenzweig, 2002. "Household Division and Rural Economic Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(4), pages 839-869.
    15. Erica Field, 2007. "Entitled to Work: Urban Property Rights and Labor Supply in Peru," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(4), pages 1561-1602.
    16. Deere, Carmen Diana & Leon, Magdalena, 2003. "The Gender Asset Gap: Land in Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 925-947, June.
    17. Besley, Timothy, 1995. "Property Rights and Investment Incentives: Theory and Evidence from Ghana," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(5), pages 903-937, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sofia Amaral, 2015. "Do Improved Property Rights Decrease Violence Against Women in India?," Discussion Papers 15-10, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    2. Anderson, Siwan & Genicot, Garance, 2015. "Suicide and property rights in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 64-78.
    3. Roy, Sanchari, 2015. "Empowering women? Inheritance rights, female education and dowry payments in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 233-251.
    4. Lambert, Sylvie & Ravallion, Martin & van de Walle, Dominique, 2014. "Intergenerational mobility and interpersonal inequality in an African economy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 327-344.
    5. Sapkal Rahul Suresh, 2017. "From Mother to Daughter: Does Equal Inheritance Property Laws Reform Improve Female Labor Supply and Educational Attainments in India?," Asian Journal of Law and Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-36, April.
    6. Marco Alfano, 2014. "Daughters, Dowries, Deliveries:The Effect of Marital Payments on Fertility Choices in India," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1413, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    7. Kudo, Yuya, 2012. "Marriage as women's old age insurance : evidence from migration and land inheritance practices in rural Tanzania," IDE Discussion Papers 368, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    8. Sylvie Lambert & Martin Ravallion & Dominique van de Walle, 2011. "Is It What You Inherited Or What You Learnt?: Intergenerational linkage and interpersonal inequality in Senegal," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2011-062, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Martinho, Vítor João Pereira Domingues, 2012. "Effects on women empowerment of awareness raising," EconStor Preprints 67517, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    10. S Thangamayan, 2020. "Enhancing Women’s Empowerment: Evidence from Tamilnadu," Shanlax International Journal of Economics, Shanlax Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 36-41, December.
    11. Lambert, Sylvie & van de Walle, Dominique, 2011. "Is It What You Inherited Or What You Learnt?," WIDER Working Paper Series 062, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. R Premalatha, 2020. "Pattern of Public Expenditure on Social Sector in India," Shanlax International Journal of Economics, Shanlax Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 57-62, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roy, Sanchari, 2015. "Empowering women? Inheritance rights, female education and dowry payments in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 233-251.
    2. Jacob, Arun, 2016. "Gender Bias in Educational Attainment in India : The Role of Dowry Payments," MPRA Paper 76338, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Bhalotra, Sonia & Brulé, Rachel & Roy, Sanchari, 2020. "Women's inheritance rights reform and the preference for sons in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    4. Hallward-Driemeier, Mary & Gajigo, Ousman, 2015. "Strengthening Economic Rights and Women’s Occupational Choice: The Impact of Reforming Ethiopia’s Family Law," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 260-273.
    5. Smriti Rao & Kade Finnoff, 2015. "Marriage Migration and Inequality in India, 1983–2008," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 41(3), pages 485-505, September.
    6. Ali, Daniel Ayalew & Deininger, Klaus & Goldstein, Markus, 2014. "Environmental and gender impacts of land tenure regularization in Africa: Pilot evidence from Rwanda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 262-275.
    7. Chiplunkar, Gaurav & Weaver, Jeffrey, 2023. "Marriage markets and the rise of dowry in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    8. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    9. Besley, Timothy & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2009. "The de Soto effect," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 25429, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Besley, Timothy & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2010. "Property Rights and Economic Development," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4525-4595, Elsevier.
    11. Aragón, Fernando M., 2015. "Do better property rights improve local income?: Evidence from First Nations' treaties," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 43-56.
    12. Congdon Fors, Heather & Houngbedji, Kenneth & Lindskog, Annika, 2019. "Land certification and schooling in rural Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 190-208.
    13. Ma, M., 2018. "Earthbound Labor and Transitory Exit from Farming in China," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277433, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    14. Ann-Sofie Isaksson, 2015. "Unequal Property Rights: A Study of Land Right Inequalities in Rwanda," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(1), pages 60-83, March.
    15. Goldstein, Markus & Houngbedji, Kenneth & Kondylis, Florence & O'Sullivan, Michael & Selod, Harris, 2018. "Formalization without certification? Experimental evidence on property rights and investment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 57-74.
    16. Xu, Huayu, 2021. "The long-term health and economic consequences of improved property rights," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    17. Subramanian, Arjunan & Kumar, Parmod, 2024. "Property rights, factor allocation and household welfare: Experimental evidence from a land titling program in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    18. Ho, Hoang-Anh, 2021. "Land tenure and economic development: Evidence from Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    19. Richard Hornbeck, 2010. "Barbed Wire: Property Rights and Agricultural Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(2), pages 767-810.
    20. Harris Selod & Lara Tobin, 2018. "The spatial sorting of informal dwellers in cities in developing countries: Theory and evidence," Working Papers halshs-01703178, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cge:wacage:46. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jane Snape (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.