Do Labor Market Opportunities Affect Young Women’s Work and Family Decisions? Experimental Evidence from India

Original source

Robert Jensen

Journal article · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · 127, 753–792 · Version date: 3 March 2012

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c The Author(s) 2012. Published by Oxford University Press, on the behalf of President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals. permissions@oup.com.

Used in these cards

Age-Graded Educational Return Sensitivity

"Girls 6-10 (primary school age) were 3.1 percentage points more likely to be enrolled in treatment villages, but the effect is not statistically significant... For girls 11-17, the treatment resulted in a 5.9 percentage point gain (significant at the 5% level)."

Anticipatory Human Capital and Child Nutrition Investment

"Significantly, we also find that even younger, school-aged girls had increased school enrollment and greater body mass index (BMI), reflecting better nutrition and/or health investments."

Cross-Gender Asymmetry in Human Capital and Labor Market Effects

"In sharp contrast to the results for women, there are no effects for young men... the recruiting treatment had no impact on enrollment, training, employment, or marriage for young men."

Female Opportunity Cost Model of Marriage and Fertility

"Women from treatment villages aged 15 to 21 at baseline, the peak age range for marriage and the initiation of childbearing in rural India, were 5-6 percentage points less likely to get married or to have given birth over the three-year period of our intervention."

Intra-Budget Consumption Substitution for Female Schooling

"Consistent with these gains, and the high costs of schooling in India... the treatment led to an increase in the budget share devoted to schooling in households with school-aged girls."

Lifecourse Career Aspiration and Workforce Attachment Shift

"The desire to work before marriage is around 13 percentage points higher for women from treatment villages. The share who want to work after marriage... and after their children are older increase by 10-11 percentage points."

Independence of Youth Opportunity Effects from Maternal Bargaining Power

"The treatment does not have a statistically significant impact on women's participation in decision making for schooling and health specifically, or for overall decision making and women's autonomy..."

Decoupling Child Human Capital Investments from Parental Educational Deficits

"The increase in enrollment for girls was not limited to households with educated parents... even uneducated parents increased investments in their daughters' schooling when presented with clear evidence of labor market returns."

Private Vocational Training Investment Response to Market Demand

"Column (1) of Table IV shows that women 18-24 in treatment villages were 2.8 percentage points more likely to be enrolled in such programs... indicating a willingness to invest in human capital to get a job or build a career when suitable opportunities are available."

Short-Term Anthropometric BMI Elasticity to Expected Labor Returns

"The treatment led to a statistically significant increase in BMI-for-age z-scores for girls... However, there was no statistically significant effect of the treatment on height-for-age z-scores."

Mitigation of Son Preference in Early Childhood Intrahousehold Allocation

"The effect of the recruiting treatment on BMI-for-age z-scores is positive and statistically significant at the 1 percent level for girls... In contrast, there is no effect of the treatment on the BMI of boys."

White-Collar Comparative Advantage and Stigma Reduction

"Boserup (1970), Costa (2000), Goldin (1990, 1995, 2006)... argue that there may be less of a social stigma associated with women working in white-collar jobs. These jobs are considered safer and 'cleaner' than manual labor..."