Women’s Worth: Trade, Female Income, and Fertility in India

Abstract

This paper shows that trade policy can have significant intergenerational distributional effects across gender and social strata. We compare women and births in rural Indian districts more or less exposed to the 1991 trade reform. For low socioeconomic status women, the tariff cuts increased fertility and improved the sex ratio at birth and the relative survival rate for girls. On the contrary, fertility decreased and the sex ratio at birth and the relative survival rate for girls worsened among high-status families more exposed to the tariff cuts. Moreover, relative female income increased (decreased) for lower-caste (upper-caste) women.

The Toll of Tariffs: Protectionism, Education and Fertility in Late 19th Century France

“…Although apparently in contrast to our results, the evidence for India can be reconciled with ours by noting that the change in relative prices induced by a tariff has an income and a substitution effect. Both Edmonds, Pavcnik, and Topolova (2010) and Anukriti and Kumler (2019) find that in rural India the income effect dominates, while our results indicate that in late 19th-century France, like in Atkin's study, the substitution effect drove observed outcomes.…”

“…They find smaller increases in school attendance in rural districts where the structure of production was such that the policy implied a larger reduction in effective tariffs and argue that the reason is probably the underlying povertyschooling relationship: a larger tariff shock implies falling prices of local production and hence a slower reduction in poverty (relative to the national average), leading to slower education growth. The effects of trade policy on fertility have barely been studied, with the exception of Chakraborty (2015) and Anukriti and Kumler (2019) which focus on how tariffs affect sex ratios. The latter also consider the impact on liberalisation on fertility rates and find that districts which were more affected by tariff reductions exhibited a slower decline in fertility.…”

“…See, for example,Broda and Weinstein (2006),Goldberg, Khandelwal, Pavcnik, and Topalova (2010),Autor, Dorn, andHanson (2013), andBloom, Draca, andVan Reenen (2016) for microeconomic analyses, andWinters (2004) for a review of the literature on trade and growth.2 The few exceptions areSchultz (1985),Galor and Mountford (2008),Chakraborty (2015),Atkin (2016) andAnukriti and Kumler (2019). See below for a discussion.…”

Trade-offs? The Impact of WTO Accession on Intimate Partner Violence in Cambodia

“…studies that have found either no significant differences by gender (McCaig and Pavcnik 2018;Erten et al 2019;Dix-Carneiro and Kovak 2019) or greater employment losses among men than among women without evidence of an increase in women's employment (Gaddis and Pieters 2017; Autor et al 2019). One notable exception is Anukriti and Kumler (2019), who find that in India, women's employment increased relative to men's employment for lower castes in districts more exposed to tariff declines, while the opposite effects were found for upper castes.…”

Three Essays on Economic Growth and Human Welfare

“…This comes from the recognition that trade might have heterogeneous impacts on different sections of the population. For instance, Anukriti and Kumler (2015) find that India's 1991 trade liberalization increased fertility, improved the sex ratio at birth, and improved female child survival for women of lower socioeconomic status. On the other hand, Topalova (2007) and Edmonds et al (2010) find that the same liberalization episode increased poverty in districts most affected by the loss of tariff protection and reduced schooling for children.…”