Reassessing the relationship between women's empowerment and fertility: Evidence from India

IF 2 4区经济学 Q2 DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

Review of Development Economics Pub Date : 2023-11-01 DOI:10.1111/rode.13066

Nayana Bose, Shreyasee Das

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract An overwhelming body of evidence supports a negative relationship between women's empowerment and fertility. In this paper, we evaluate whether this relationship holds in a setting with a high degree of son preference and limited access to abortion services by focusing on rural India. We exploit the reforms to the Hindu Succession Act that improved female empowerment by mandating equal inheritance rights for women to assess the reform's impact on women's fertility. Using NFHS‐3 data and a difference‐in‐differences estimation, our results show that women who benefitted from the reform had more children than their counterparts. We attribute this increase in fertility to women's ability to use the stopping rule to achieve son preference. Finally, women impacted by the reform had a higher proportion of sons for a given family size, indicating stronger inherent son preference among treated women.

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重新评估妇女赋权与生育率之间的关系:来自印度的证据

大量证据支持妇女赋权与生育能力之间存在负相关关系。在本文中，我们通过关注印度农村，评估了这种关系是否在高度重男轻女和堕胎服务有限的情况下成立。我们利用《印度教继承法》的改革来评估改革对妇女生育能力的影响，该法案通过规定妇女享有平等的继承权来提高妇女赋权。使用NFHS - 3数据和差中差估计，我们的结果表明，受益于改革的妇女比其同行有更多的孩子。我们将这种生育率的提高归因于女性使用停止规则来实现重男轻女的能力。最后，在一定的家庭规模中，受改革影响的妇女生儿子的比例更高，这表明受改革的妇女更倾向于生儿子。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Review of Development Economics Multiple-

CiteScore

3.20

自引率

6.20%

发文量

109

期刊介绍： The Review of Development Economics is a leading journal publishing high-quality research in development economics. It publishes rigorous analytical papers, theoretical and empirical, which deal with contemporary growth problems of developing countries, including the transition economies. The Review not only serves as a link between theorists and practitioners, but also builds a bridge between development economists and their colleagues in related fields. While the level of the Review of Development Economics is academic, the materials presented are of value to policy makers and researchers, especially those in developing countries.