[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/glodps/1517.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Property Inheritance Rights and Female Political Participation in India

Author

Listed:
  • Nandwani, Bharti
  • Roychowdhury, Punarjit
Abstract
This paper examines whether granting property inheritance rights to women improves their participation in politics as election candidates in India. In patriarchal societies like India, conservative gender norms often discourage women from active political engagement, reinforced by social sanctions for non-compliance. Additionally, political involvement demands significant time and financial resources, making it particularly challenging for women. Enhancing property rights has the potential to financially empower women, alleviating both social and economic constraints. Using state-level variation in legal changes to women's property rights and leveraging large-scale administrative data on elections in India, we find that improved property rights lead to a rise in female candidacy and an increased likelihood of electoral success for women. We also observe that regional parties field more female candidates, and there is a notable increase in the entry of 'new' female candidates post-reform. Furthermore, using extensive household survey data, we show that this rise in political participation is driven by improvements in women's financial autonomy, education, and economic awareness following the inheritance reforms. Our analysis confirms that these results are not confounded by pre-existing trends and are robust to treatment effect heterogeneity.

Suggested Citation

  • Nandwani, Bharti & Roychowdhury, Punarjit, 2024. "Property Inheritance Rights and Female Political Participation in India," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1517, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:1517
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/306098/1/GLO-DP-1517.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grossman, Philip J. & Eckel, Catherine & Komai, Mana & Zhan, Wei, 2019. "It pays to be a man: Rewards for leaders in a coordination game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 197-215.
    2. Keller, Wolfgang & Molina, Teresa & Olney, William W., 2023. "The gender gap among top business executives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 270-286.
    3. Baltrunaite, Audinga & Bello, Piera & Casarico, Alessandra & Profeta, Paola, 2014. "Gender quotas and the quality of politicians," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 62-74.
    4. Anderson, Siwan & Genicot, Garance, 2015. "Suicide and property rights in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 64-78.
    5. Guillaume R. Fréchette & Francois Maniquet & Massimo Morelli, 2008. "Incumbents' Interests and Gender Quotas," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(4), pages 891-909, October.
    6. 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.
    7. Raghabendra Chattopadhyay & Esther Duflo, 2004. "Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in India," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(5), pages 1409-1443, September.
    8. Bleck, Jaimie & Michelitch, Kristin, 2018. "Is women’s empowerment associated with political knowledge and opinions? Evidence from rural Mali," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 299-323.
    9. Bahrami-Rad, Duman, 2021. "Keeping it in the family: Female inheritance, inmarriage, and the status of women," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    10. Brady, Henry E. & Verba, Sidney & Schlozman, Kay Lehman, 1995. "Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(2), pages 271-294, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Chauvin, Juan Pablo & Tricaud, Clemence, 2022. "Gender and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Crisis Response," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 12411, Inter-American Development Bank.
    3. Hessami, Zohal & da Fonseca, Mariana Lopes, 2020. "Female political representation and substantive effects on policies: A literature review," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    4. Lassébie, Julie, 2020. "Gender quotas and the selection of local politicians: Evidence from French municipal elections," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    5. Lippmann, Quentin, 2021. "Are gender quotas on candidates bound to be ineffective?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 661-678.
    6. Calvi, Rossella & Keskar, Ajinkya, 2021. "'Til Dowry Do Us Part: Bargaining and Violence in Indian Families," CEPR Discussion Papers 15696, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Siwan Anderson & Chris Bidner, 2021. "An Institutional Perspective on the Economics of the Family," Discussion Papers dp21-14, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University.
    8. Garcia-Hernandez, Ana & Grossman, Guy & Michelitch, Kristin Grace, 2022. "Networks and the Size of the Gender Gap in Politician Performance Across Job Duties," OSF Preprints j7zg2, Center for Open Science.
    9. Siwan Anderson, 2024. "The Complexity of Female Empowerment in India," Studies in Microeconomics, , vol. 12(1), pages 74-92, April.
    10. Joo, Hailey Hayeon & Lee, Jungmin, 2018. "Encountering female politicians," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 88-122.
    11. Sonia Bhalotra & Abhishek Chakravarty & Dilip Mookherjee & Francisco J. Pino, 2019. "Property Rights and Gender Bias: Evidence from Land Reform in West Bengal," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 205-237, April.
    12. Margaux Suteau, 2020. "Inheritance Rights and Women's Empowerment in the Labor and Marriage Markets," THEMA Working Papers 2020-17, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    13. O’Brien, Diana Z. & Rickne, Johanna, 2016. "Gender Quotas and Women's Political Leadership," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 110(1), pages 112-126, February.
    14. Thomas Braendle & Alois Stutzer, 2017. "Voters and Representatives: How Should Representatives Be Selected?," CREMA Working Paper Series 2017-05, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    15. Donal Ajoumessi Houmpe & Ngouhouo Ibrahim, 2020. "The effect of African leaders' foreign education/training on the completion of primary education in their countries," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(4), pages 3241-3255.
    16. Galasso, Vincenzo & Nannicini, Tommaso, 2013. "Men Vote in Mars, Women Vote in Venus: A Survey Experiment in the Field," CEPR Discussion Papers 9547, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Gonzalez-Eiras, Martín & Sanz, Carlos, 2021. "Women’s representation in politics: The effect of electoral systems," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    18. Tanu Gupta, 2022. "Women's inheritance rights and time use: Evidence from Hindu Succession Act in India," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-20, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Chiara Pronzato & Paola Profeta & Valeria Ferraro & Giulia Ferrari, 2016. "Gender Quotas: Challenging the Boards, Performance, and the Stock Market," Working Papers id:11411, eSocialSciences.
    20. Ermini, Barbara & Santolini, Raffaella & Ciommi, Mariateresa, 2023. "Equitable and sustainable well-being in Italian municipalities: Do women in politics make the difference?," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).

    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

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:zbw:glodps:1517. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/glabode.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.