The power of employment: Effects of India’s employment guarantee on women empowerment

Smartphone use, off‐farm employment, and women's decision‐making power: Evidence from rural China

“…From an intensity perspective, another month spent on off‐farm employment increases women's decision‐making power by 8.8%. The findings are consistent with previous studies (e.g., de Brauw et al, 2021; Krumbiegel, Maertens, & Wollni, 2020; Rodriguez, 2022; Yu & Cui, 2019). Second, the coefficient of smartphone use is still statistically significant and smaller than that in Table 4 (0.063 < 0.074), indicating that a part of the positive impact of smartphone use on women's decision‐making power is explained by the off‐farm employment mechanism.…”

“…Two types of approaches are usually employed to address the selection bias issue of a binary treatment variable. The first is instrumental variable‐based (IV‐based) methods, including the endogenous treatment regression (ETR) model (Ma & Abdulai, 2017; Stata Press, 2019), endogenous switching regression (ESR) model (Ma, Zheng, & Yuan, 2021; Rodriguez, 2022), and control function approach (Dohmwirth & Liu, 2020; Wooldridge, 2015). The second refers to nonparametric methods, such as the propensity score matching (PSM) approach (Dohmwirth & Liu, 2020; Zheng & Lu, 2021), augmented inverse probability weighted (AIPW) estimator (Hossain & Samad, 2021), and inverse probability weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA) estimator (Zheng & Ma, 2021).…”

“…Women's off-farm employment is also an additional income source for rural households, with potentially empowering outcomes (Neog & Sahoo, 2020). In addition, off-farm work provides access to credit and savings, which enhances rural women's social and economic status (Rodriguez, 2022). Therefore, we hypothesize that smartphone use empowers women through additional off-farm employment.…”

Sustainable women empowerment at the bottom of the pyramid through credit access

“…Datta and Sahu (2021) have observed from eastern India that microcredit financial institutions have a positive influence on the livelihood status of rural women by generating employment and self-income opportunities. Likewise, Rodriguez (2022) proves that the government employment guarantee schemes in India have significant effects on the demand for credits and reducing the violence against women. A similar observation is evidenced by Hoa et al (2022) in Vietnam on the effectiveness of the credit assistance package in the improvement of household income of women as well as in overcoming the barriers of accessing bank credits and sustainable poverty reduction for poor minority households.…”

“…Datta and Sahu (2021) have observed from eastern India that microcredit financial institutions have a positive influence on the livelihood status of rural women by generating employment and self-income opportunities. Likewise, Rodriguez (2022) proves that the government employment guarantee schemes in India have significant effects on the demand for credits and reducing the violence against women. A similar observation is evidenced by Hoa et al.…”