Water in Scarcity, Women in Peril

We provide evidence that groundwater scarcity results in an increase in sexual violence against women. Negative shocks, measured as the year-to-year variation in subsurface water from the long-term mean, result in an increase in reported rapes. We bolster our identification by providing insights from geology that explain why annual fluctuations in subsurface water are largely geogenic and hence exogenous. We posit that these negative shocks increase the time required for women to collect water from outside the house, thus exposing them to a heightened risk of violent attack. We find empirical support for this hypothesis and show evidence that makes alternative explanations untenable.