Gender-Neutral Inheritance L;aws, Family Structure, and Women's Status in India

This paper examines whether economic empowerment of women improves their autonomy within their marital household, and investigates the mechanism, by exploiting variation from a legal reform aimed at improving women's inheritance rights in Indi...

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Main Author:	Mookerjee, Sulagna
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2017
Subjects:	GENDER INHERITANCE LAWS FAMILY STRUCTURE FAMILY ECONOMICS INTRAHOUSEHOLD BARGAINING WOMEN'S WELFARE
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/571781490880608807/Gender-neutral-inheritance-laws-family-structure-and-womens-status-in-India http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26358

id	okr-10986-26358
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-263582021-06-08T14:42:48Z Gender-Neutral Inheritance L;aws, Family Structure, and Women's Status in India Mookerjee, Sulagna GENDER INHERITANCE LAWS FAMILY STRUCTURE FAMILY ECONOMICS INTRAHOUSEHOLD BARGAINING WOMEN'S WELFARE This paper examines whether economic empowerment of women improves their autonomy within their marital household, and investigates the mechanism, by exploiting variation from a legal reform aimed at improving women's inheritance rights in India. Results suggest that the reform increased women’s participation in decision-making but at the expense of the older generation of household members and not at the expense of their husbands. Two channels are proposed to explain this phenomenon. First, this can be driven by a shift in the family structure from traditional joint families to nuclear households. Such a change is consistent both with the increase in women's decision-making authority, which they can exert to move out of the joint household, as well as with men's incentives, since men have weaker financial links with their parents post-reform. Second, even within joint families, the amendments empowered young couples at the expense of the older generation of household members. 2017-04-13T17:20:39Z 2017-04-13T17:20:39Z 2017-03 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/571781490880608807/Gender-neutral-inheritance-laws-family-structure-and-womens-status-in-India http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26358 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8017 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper South Asia India
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English en_US
topic	GENDER INHERITANCE LAWS FAMILY STRUCTURE FAMILY ECONOMICS INTRAHOUSEHOLD BARGAINING WOMEN'S WELFARE
spellingShingle	GENDER INHERITANCE LAWS FAMILY STRUCTURE FAMILY ECONOMICS INTRAHOUSEHOLD BARGAINING WOMEN'S WELFARE Mookerjee, Sulagna Gender-Neutral Inheritance L;aws, Family Structure, and Women's Status in India
geographic_facet	South Asia India
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8017
description	This paper examines whether economic empowerment of women improves their autonomy within their marital household, and investigates the mechanism, by exploiting variation from a legal reform aimed at improving women's inheritance rights in India. Results suggest that the reform increased women’s participation in decision-making but at the expense of the older generation of household members and not at the expense of their husbands. Two channels are proposed to explain this phenomenon. First, this can be driven by a shift in the family structure from traditional joint families to nuclear households. Such a change is consistent both with the increase in women's decision-making authority, which they can exert to move out of the joint household, as well as with men's incentives, since men have weaker financial links with their parents post-reform. Second, even within joint families, the amendments empowered young couples at the expense of the older generation of household members.
format	Working Paper
author	Mookerjee, Sulagna
author_facet	Mookerjee, Sulagna
author_sort	Mookerjee, Sulagna
title	Gender-Neutral Inheritance L;aws, Family Structure, and Women's Status in India
title_short	Gender-Neutral Inheritance L;aws, Family Structure, and Women's Status in India
title_full	Gender-Neutral Inheritance L;aws, Family Structure, and Women's Status in India
title_fullStr	Gender-Neutral Inheritance L;aws, Family Structure, and Women's Status in India
title_full_unstemmed	Gender-Neutral Inheritance L;aws, Family Structure, and Women's Status in India
title_sort	gender-neutral inheritance l;aws, family structure, and women's status in india
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2017
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/571781490880608807/Gender-neutral-inheritance-laws-family-structure-and-womens-status-in-India http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26358
_version_	1764461785323143168

Gender-Neutral Inheritance L;aws, Family Structure, and Women's Status in India

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