The Social Lives of Married Women : Peer Effects in Female Autonomy and Investments in Children
In patriarchal societies, sticky norms affect married women's social circles, their autonomy, and the outcomes of intra-household bargaining. This paper uses primary data on women's social networks in Uttarakhand, India; the modal woman h...
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/956911556196476666/The-Social-Lives-of-Married-Women-Peer-Effects-in-Female-Autonomy-and-Investments-in-Children http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31596 |
| Summary: | In patriarchal societies, sticky norms
affect married women's social circles, their autonomy,
and the outcomes of intra-household bargaining. This paper
uses primary data on women's social networks in
Uttarakhand, India; the modal woman has only three friends,
and over 80 percent do not have any friends of another
caste. This paper examines the effect of a shock to
friends' empowerment on a woman's autonomy,
specifically physical mobility, access to social safety
nets, and employment outside the household; perceived social
norms; and an outcome of household bargaining: investments
in her children. The analysis instruments for endogenous
network formation using a woman's age and her caste
network in the village. The key peer effect is the impact of
having a friend who received an empowerment shock on a woman
who did not receive that shock. The results show significant
peer effects on only a few of the examined measures of
women's autonomy. In contrast, peer effects exist on
all considered outcomes of a daughters’ diet and time spent
on chores. The findings suggest a large decay rate between
effects on own empowerment and peer effects. Interventions
targeting child welfare through women's empowerment may
generate second-order effects on intra-household
decision-making, albeit with substantial decay rates, and
thus benefit from targeted rather than randomized rollout.
In contract, interventions on gender roles and women's
autonomy may be limited by the stickiness of social norms. |
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