Tariffs, Social Status, and Gender in India

50 Pages Posted: 22 Feb 2014

See all articles by S Anukriti

S Anukriti

Boston College; IZA

Todd Kumler

Columbia University

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

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 tariff cuts. For low socioeconomic status women, tariff cuts increase the likelihood of a female birth and these daughters are less likely to die during infancy and childhood. On the contrary, high-status women are less likely to give birth to girls and their daughters have higher mortality rates when more exposed to tariff declines. Consistent with the fertility-sex ratio trade-off in high son preference societies, fertility increases for low-status women and decreases for high-status women. An exploration of the mechanisms suggests that the labor market returns for low-status women (relative to men) and high-status men (relative to women) have increased in response to trade liberalization. Thus, altered expectations about future returns from daughters relative to sons seem to have caused families to change the sex-composition of and health investments in their children.

Keywords: trade liberalization, India, gender, sex ratio, child mortality, fertility

JEL Classification: F13, I15, J12, J13, J16, J82, O15, O18, O19, O24

Suggested Citation

Anukriti, S and Kumler, Todd, Tariffs, Social Status, and Gender in India. IZA Discussion Paper No. 7969, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2399809 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2399809

S Anukriti (Contact Author)

Boston College ( email )

140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
United States

IZA ( email )

Todd Kumler

Columbia University ( email )

New York, NY 10027
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
48
Abstract Views
584
PlumX Metrics