Intergenerational effects of improving women’s property rights: evidence from India

This paper analyzes the intergenerational effects following positive changes in women’s inheritance rights India. Using Indian Human Development Survey data for rural India and a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that property reform significantly empowered women through increased education. However, no effect of on children’s We explore two potential mechanisms to explain these results: role status conflict among spouses child’s birth-order gender. Given woman’s bargaining power may depend her relative position husband, investigate this channel significant decrease education households where fathers are less educated than mothers. Accounting gender, evidence son-preference channel.