Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/177043 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 11239
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We investigate whether legislation of equal inheritance rights for women modifies the historic preference for sons in India, and find that it exacerbates it. Children born after the reform in families with a first-born daughter are 3.8–4.3 percentage points less likely to be girls, indicating that the reform encouraged female foeticide. We also find that the reform increased excess female infant mortality and son-biased fertility stopping. This suggests that the inheritance reform raised the costs of having daughters, consistent with which we document an increase in stated son preference in fertility post-reform. We conclude that this is a case where legal reform was frustrated by persistence of cultural norms. We provide some suggestive evidence of slowly changing patrilocality norms.
Subjects: 
inheritance rights
ultrasound
female foeticide
sex selection
son preference
gender
India
JEL: 
O12
K11
I21
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
860.13 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.