In India’s rural villages, social norms dictate that women are to remain in the home, not out and about—and definitely not working. If a woman is seen working outside the home, her neighbors might think she’s a bad mother. They might also think that her husband is a poor provider.
Social norms are powerful. Despite numerous advances in the Indian economy, reduced birth rates, higher levels of female education, and other promising signals (this year saw the highest-ever number of women elected to Indian Parliament) the number of women in the workforce dropped from 37 percent in 1990 to 28 percent in 2015. Yet nearly one-third of Indian housewives express the desire to work.
How do governments go about changing perceptions of women in the workforce when it’s in their economic interest to do so? A recent working paper by Harvard Business School assistant professor Natalia Rigol and four other economists offers a new way of thinking about this puzzle.
Published in September by the National Bureau of Economic Research, On Her Own Account: How Strengthening Women’s Financial Control Affects Labor Supply and Gender Norms shows that simply giving women the means to access and control their wages increased rates of female labor force participation and decreased negative perceptions around women working outside the home.
“What we found is counterintuitive,” says Rigol, noting that traditional economic models assume that increasing women’s control will reduce their willingness to work. “If I increase your bargaining power over the share of household income you benefit from, I strengthen your position in the household,” she explains.
“And, because you’re now in a position to assert your preferences more, traditional models suggest that you would have more leisure time and actually work less.”
Empowerment through financial access
Conducted in partnership with state and bank authorities, the study, which took place from 2013 to 2017, looked at 5,851 married couples in 197 villages in the northern India state of Madhya Pradesh.
The study encompassed five groups. In the first, a bank account was opened in the name of the woman in the household; the second included an account and basic training in banking; the third included an account and direct deposit of wages earned in a government work program; the fourth included all three variables—an account, training, and direct deposit; in the fifth, the control group, no intervention took place.
As background, Rigol and her coauthors note that the federal work program featured in the study transitioned from cash to electronic payments in 2008. In late 2012, the government’s minister of rural development announced that women’s wages should be deposited into their individual bank accounts.
Even so, the more conservative state of Madhya Pradesh and the villages of Rigol’s study were slow to adopt this policy. Status quo dictated that wages would be deposited into the male head of household’s account.
"We’re changing their attitudes and perceptions, and those of their husbands."
The study’s findings showed a clear uptick in women working outside the home, with the strongest results seen for women who were more socially constrained (women who at baseline had reported not working). The effects went beyond the government work program, with women’s labor force participation rising in the private sector.
In addition to increasing financial inclusion and autonomy among women, Rigol and her coauthors found that one year into the study, women in the group who received banking training and direct deposit of wages scored 0.16 standard deviation units higher on an index of labor market engagement. Rates were even higher at 0.21 units for socially constrained women with husbands who subscribed to social norms against women working.
After three years, empowerment scores (a measure of economic activity, mobility, and decision-making power, among other factors) rose to the point that the gap between the two groups of women (constrained and unconstrained) was essentially closed.
“We are not making these women ultra-liberals,” Rigol says of the more socially constrained group. “We’re changing their attitudes and perceptions, and those of their husbands, to catch up with households that were baseline, less restricted. We’re trying to get everyone on the same page.”
Tearing down social stigmas
Three years after the study, the beliefs of women who were in the direct deposit and training groups regarding female labor force participation were more progressive than those of women in the accounts-only group. Their husbands’ beliefs remained unchanged, but the men’s perceptions of women and work became more progressive—a result achieved with no direct effort to change those social norms.
With women incentivized to work through increased financial access, control, and literacy, Rigol explains, the sight of a woman working outside the home became more common—and the perceived social cost of a working wife decreased, even if a husband’s conservative opinion on the topic of women and work remained unchanged: “This finding indicates that the perceived social cost of women working was a significant factor in keeping women out of the workforce.”
“Economists have been slow to incorporate norms and empowerment in their research because they’re difficult to show and measure,” says Rigol.
"It’s rewarding to have the opportunity to help shape public policy in a way that’s beneficial to them."
Yet social norms are a significant factor when it comes to the success or failure of government programs. Women’s participation in the government work program in India’s northern states was hovering around 10 percent, for example, when legislation stated that 33 percent of the work should go to women. Now, Rigol says, the Indian government is adopting the same approach used in their study across all states (opening a bank account, training, and direct deposit) to boost women’s participation in the government work program.
“I’m excited to continue with this research agenda and hope it generates new work to help us understand how we can strengthen women’s decision-making across many areas of their lives,” says Rigol, noting that she and her coauthors are now partnering with the Indian government to study gender norms around technology adoption.
“I spend a lot of time in villages, talking to women, and so often their view of themselves is low,” she says. “It’s rewarding to have the opportunity to help shape public policy in a way that’s beneficial to them.”
About the Author
Julia Hanna is an associate editor of the HBS Alumni Bulletin.
[Image: Zzvet]
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