In this dissertation, I study factors that shape women’s economic and social participation.I explore the role of extra-legal factors in decision-making in sexual crime cases, and study
aspects of women’s economic participation through their participation in leadership positions
and competitive environments, and the intergenerational health impacts of maternal
employment opportunities.
Evidence suggests that the lack of safety pushes women to choose lower-quality education
institutes and drop out of the labor market. The MeToo movement took the world by
storm and brought the issue of sexual crimes to center stage. However, we do not know if
such global outrage systematically increases the costs of sexual crimes for the perpetrators
in form of the punishments meted out to them. In absence of granular data on case-specific
judicial outcomes and media reporting, it is hard to rigorously answer this question. Motivated
by this, in my first chapter, I investigate if judges are more likely to convict offenders
of sexual crimes when they are exposed to more media reports about sexual assaults. I
use rich administrative data on the universe of sexual assault cases filed in lower courts
in India and high-frequency data on daily media reports about sexual assaults in districts
in the country. Using a generalized difference-in-difference model, I find that judges are more likely to convict offenders in sexual assault cases that carry low punishments when
they are exposed to more media reports. I find no impact of media reports on more serious
sexual assault cases like rape cases, where judicial discretion might be lower since rape
cases are filed with more forensic evidence, and convicting the offender here carries harsher
punishments. The increase in the probability of conviction for assault cases is likely to be
driven through the channel of more scrutiny by the judges in response to media outrage.
Apart from safety concerns, women’s participation in the economy is also restricted due to
the burden of childcare duties that disproportionately fall on them. In my second chapter
titled “Employment Booms and Infant Health: Evidence from Ready-Made Garment
Sector in Bangladesh”, I argue that having more women in the labor force can improve
their children’s outcomes. I look at the impact of employment booms, particularly beneficial
for women, on infant health using evidence from the readymade garment industry
in Bangladesh. I exploit exogenous variation in employment created in the sector due to
the removal of a trade quota, which made a spatial and temporal variation in employment
opportunities for women. Using a difference-in-difference model, I find that access to
these jobs leads to increased female labor force participation. Correspondingly, I find that
women delay their age at first birth, increase the birth spacing between two births, and
breastfeed longer. These channels of better health inputs and behavior collectively lead to
an improved survival rate of neonates in areas with a relatively high density of these jobs.
Motivated by this positive spillover of women’s economic empowerment, in the third chapter
of my dissertation, I explore if women’s representation in leadership positions matters
for educational outcomes. In this paper, I ask if constituencies with female leaders in India
see higher growth in the number of new schools in rural India. Using a regression discontinuity
design, I find that constituencies, where a female leader is narrowly elected against
a man, do not see any differences in school construction compared to constituencies where a female leader narrowly lost to a man. Using detailed community development project
expenditure data by these leaders from two states in the country, I find descriptive evidence
that, on average, female leaders get a lower number of community development projects
sanctioned than male leaders. They also get less money approved for these projects. This
may be suggestive of the lower political agency of women. These results extend the narrative
on women’s performance in competitive and male-dominated environments.