Women's Inheritance Rights, Household Allocation, and Gender Bias
American Economic Review · 2017 · Volume 107 · Issue 5
Abstract
We analyze the impact of improved land inheritance rights for women in India on female empowerment by examining their educational attainment and the intergenerational effects of the reform. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that the amendment to the Hindu Succession Act significantly increased education of women from landed households by 0.48 years. However, our results indicate a significant decrease in the educational attainment of children, especially boys of treated mothers. We attribute this decrease to treated mothers who are better educated and able to assess the higher opportunity cost of education for boys.
Keywords
Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation, Analysis of Education, Fertility, Family Planning, Child Care, Children, Youth, Economics of Gender, Non-labor Discrimination, Economic Development: Human Resources, Human Development, Income Distribution, Migration, Formal and Informal Sectors, Shadow Economy, Institutional Arrangements
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