Research

Publications:


We study the intergenerational effects of marital transfers in India. We use exogenous variation in dowry amounts induced by stronger anti-dowry laws introduced in 1985. The new legal regime reduced dowries substantially and increased domestic violence against women. We find that children born to mothers exposed to the reform have a 0.24 standard deviation lower height-for-age z-score and about 0.41 fewer years of completed schooling. These results are plausibly driven by increased domestic violence against mothers and lower household wealth on account of reduced dowries.

Link to SSRN Working Paper Version: https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4217995

Link to journal pre-print: https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.1022-12589R1 


We utilize the timing of India’s 2016 demonetization policy to examine whether a negative macroeconomic shock disproportionately affects women’s health outcomes relative to men’s. Our empirical framework considers women as the treated group and men as the comparison group. Using data from the National Family Health Survey-4 and a household fixed effects model, we find that the induced income shock leads to a 4% decline in hemoglobin for women as compared to the pre-demonetization level. This corresponds to a 21% increase in the gender gap in hemoglobin. The result is further validated with an event study and a variety of robustness checks. An examination of food consumption suggests that this pattern is possibly driven by a widening male-female gap in the consumption of iron-rich foods.

Link to published version: doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101369 


We study the impact of mother’s widowhood on children's education in India. Using nationally representative panel data, we find that children of mothers who transition into widowhood complete 0.40 additional standardized  years of education as compared to their same-age peers. This effect is higher for daughters than sons. Greater maternal autonomy and a higher willingness to co-reside with daughters in old age amongst widowed women may plausibly explain these results.     

Link to published version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111316 


Working Papers:

We examine the impact of the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 on women's education, fertility, and employment outcomes using the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey. Our identification strategy exploits the exogenous region-by-cohort variation in the intensity of the War of 1971. Results indicate that exposed women of marriageable age in the majorly affected regions experienced a decline in the years of schooling and increase in fertility compared to their married counterparts in less affected regions after the War of 1971. This is plausibly driven by the stigma induced by rape. We find that the age cohort 11-14 years was most affected. We do not find any evidence for unmarried adolescent men. 


2. Violence, Son Preference and Fertility: Evidence from India (with Ather Hassan Dar and Debayan Pakrashi)

We study the effect of violence on male-biased fertility stopping. We exploit the fact that in India, the context of this study, parents have a clear son preference --- in an attempt to have at least one son, parents end up having more children if their firstborn is a daughter. We find that exposure to a violent conflict (the Punjab insurgency between 1978–93) leads to an intensification in such male-biased fertility stopping. This result is plausibly driven by the violent conflict putting sons' lives at greater risk, and parents responding by demanding more sons as an insurance mechanism.

Link to SSRN Working Paper 

3. Fertility Outcomes and Parental Well-being in Later Life: Evidence from India (with Bilal Ahmad Bhat and Esha Chatterjee)

We study the effect of fertility outcomes on parental well-being in post-reproductive ages. The context is India, where the gender of the firstborn is plausibly random, and parents with firstborn daughters end up having more daughters. For both women and men, we find that having a firstborn daughter leads to lower subjective life satisfaction and a greater chance of labor force participation in their post-reproductive years. These results are plausibly driven by greater financial stress associated with marrying off daughters, and, for women, by the long-term effects of abortion and lower autonomy in households with firstborn daughters. 

Link to SSRN Working Paper 

4. School Disruptions: The Effects of Conflict on Student Academic Achievements in Kashmir (with Ather Hassan Dar and Debayan Pakrashi)

This paper examines the effects of conflict-induced school closures on student achievement. We exploit a sudden spike in violence in 2010 that led to school closures in Kashmir but did not affect adjoining Jammu and Ladakh regions. Using a difference-in-differences design, we estimate that students exposed to violent conflict scored 0.13 and 0.22 standard deviations lower in reading and math tests after the unrest. Heterogeneity analyses reveal that girls and weaker students are the most adversely affected. The results are robust to various specifications, test score measurements and selection into violence.

[Draft coming soon]

5. Technological Changes, Social Norms and Fertility Choices (with Helu Jiang and Nikita Sangwan)

We study the impact of a dramatic improvement in agricultural technology (also known as the Green Revolution) on sex ratio in rural India -- a setting characterized by patrilocal marriage. Since married daughters do not make substantial material contributions to their natal families, a higher wage rate translates into an increase in the returns to having a son vis-à-vis a daughter. Our empirical estimates suggest adoption of the new technology exacerbates male-biased fertility stopping behaviours. To shed light on mechanisms, we construct a life-cycle model featuring endogenous sequential fertility choices in a patrilocal setting. Quantitative results suggest that Green Revolution can account for about 55% of the increase in male-bias in the population sex ratio. Counterfactual exercises indicate that a formal social security system may play an important role in reducing the male-bias in population sex ratio.

[Draft coming soon]