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Property inheritance rights and female political participation in India

Author

Listed:
  • Bharti Nandwani

    (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research)

  • Punarjit Roychowdhury

    (Shiv Nadar University)

Abstract

The paper examines whether granting property inheritance rights to females improves their participation in politics as election candidates in India. Conservative gender norms in patriarchal societies like India discourage women from actively participating in politics, with socially enforced sanctions for non-compliance. Additionally, being politically active is costly, requiring significant contributions of time and resources. Improvement in property rights is likely to financially empower women, easing both the constraints. Using state-level variation in legal changes to women's property rights and employing a large administrative data on elections in India, we show that better property rights for women lead to an increase in women contesting for elections and likelihood of winning for women candidates. We also document that regional parties contest more female candidates and there is increased entry of new female candidates after the reform. Further, using a large household survey data, we provide evidence that the increased political participation is driven by improved financial autonomy of women after the inheritance reforms. We confirm that pre-existing trends are not confounding our results.

Suggested Citation

  • Bharti Nandwani & Punarjit Roychowdhury, 2024. "Property inheritance rights and female political participation in India," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2024-012, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    • Handle: RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2024-012
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    File URL: http://www.igidr.ac.in/pdf/publication/WP-2024-012.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender; India; Female Political Participation; Property Rights;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • K11 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Property Law
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

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