Gender composition of children and sanitation behavior in India

Open defecation has been linked to various environmental and public health issues and has gained significant policy attention. Investing in better sanitation has also been advocated to provide women with privacy and protection from harassment. Nonetheless, previous research has shown that because of son-biased preferences, households in India underinvest in outcomes for their female children. Linking the gender composition of children to the sanitation behavior in Indian households, I find that households increase toilet ownership in the presence of female children by 5% in urban and 2.5% in rural areas, respectively. These results are robust to various empirical specifications, falsification tests, and bounding analysis to test for omitted-variable bias. Various heterogeneity analyses suggest that the decline in open defecation in response to having a female child is driven by households living in regions with a higher prevalence gender-based harassment and weaker law and order. These findings provide new evidence that differences in the gender composition of households create differential incentives to adopt toilets, which can be harnessed to reduce open defecation in India.