Adam Smith Business School

Professor Bishnupriya Gupta, University of Warwick

“Conflict and Gender Norms: Evidence from India”
Wednesday, 7 June. 4 pm
Room 540A Main Building

Abstract

Where do gender norms that favour men come from? While the status of women in India has its origins in part in son preference, the proposed explanations of son preference in the literature, such as the cultivation of rice and wheat and women’s participation in these activities, are often poor predictors of sex ratios (Fenske, Gupta, and Neumann, 2022). In this project, we use pre-colonial conflict exposure for each district of modern India and several data sources on the status of women, including colonial and modern censuses, Demographic and Health Surveys, and data on crimes against women and find that, conditional on geographic controls and state fixed effects, greater pre-colonial conflict predicts: More male-biased sex ratios today and more missing women in the population in 2011. We also find more crimes against women in recent administrative data. Conflict exposure predicts lower female shares in 1931. We argue that the mechanism is old and operates throughout the life cycle. We confirm these results using an instrument based on proximity to the Khyber Pass, “the most important highway to India”. The results survive controlling for centuries of conquest,  trade, development and religion. We emphasize the persistence of historical cultural norms arising from exposure to conflict.

Bio

Professor of Economics and the Research Director of CAGE research centre in Warwick Economics.
Editor of the Journal of Economic History
Research areas: The Great Divergence between Europe and Asia, Economic history of colonial India, Gender norms in Asia
Forthcoming book: An Economic History of India: Growth, Income and Inequalities from the Mughals to the 21st Century (Cambridge University Press)

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For further information, please contact business-school-research@glasgow.ac.uk

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First published: 31 May 2023