IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/dem/demres/v38y2018i31.html

Indian paradox: Rising education, declining womens' employment

Author

Listed:
  • Esha Chatterjee

    (Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur)

  • Sonalde Desai

    (University of Maryland)

  • Reeve Vanneman

    (University of Maryland)

Abstract

Background: Theories of human capital would suggest that with more education, women acquire greater skills and their earnings increase, resulting in higher labor force participation. However, it has been long known that in India, women’s education has a U-shaped relationship with labor force participation. Part of the decline at moderate levels of education may be due to an income effect whereby women with more education marry into richer families that enable them to withdraw from the labor force. Objective: The paper uses the first comprehensive Indian income data to evaluate whether the other family income effect explains the negative relationship between moderate women’s education and their labor force participation. Methods: Using two waves of the India Human Development Survey, a comprehensive measure of labor force participation is regressed on educational levels for currently married women aged 25–59. Results: We find a strong other family income effect that explains some but not all of the U-shape education relationship. Further analyses suggest the importance of a lack of suitable employment opportunities for moderately educated women. Conclusions: Other factors need to be identified to explain the paradoxical U-shape relationship. We suggest the importance of occupational sex segregation, which excludes moderately educated Indian women from clerical and sales jobs. Contribution: This paper provides a more definitive test of the other family income effect and identifies new directions for future research that might explain the paradoxical U-curve relationship.

Suggested Citation

  • Esha Chatterjee & Sonalde Desai & Reeve Vanneman, 2018. "Indian paradox: Rising education, declining womens' employment," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 38(31), pages 855-878.
    • Handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:38:y:2018:i:31
    DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2018.38.31
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol38/31/38-31.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4054/DemRes.2018.38.31?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. King, E.M., 1990. "Does Education Pay In The Labor Market?: The Labor Force Participation, Occupation, And Earnings Of Peruvian Women," Papers 67, World Bank - Living Standards Measurement.
    2. Stephan Klasen & Janneke Pieters, 2015. "What Explains the Stagnation of Female Labor Force Participation in Urban India?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 29(3), pages 449-478.
    3. Kristin Mammen & Christina Paxson, 2000. "Women's Work and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 141-164, Fall.
    4. Afridi, Farzana & Dinkelman, Taryn & Mahajan, Kanika, 2016. "Why Are Fewer Married Women Joining the Work Force in India? A Decomposition Analysis over Two Decades," IZA Discussion Papers 9722, IZA Network @ LISER.
    5. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon & Jeemol Unni, 2001. "Education and Women's Labour Market Outcomes in India," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 173-195.
    6. Andres,Luis Alberto & Dasgupta,Basab & Joseph,George & Abraham,Vinoj & Correia,Maria C., 2017. "Precarious drop : reassessing patterns of female labor force participation in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8024, The World Bank.
    7. Goldin, Claudia, 1992. "Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195072709.
    8. Maitreyi Bordia Das, and Sonalde Desai, 2003. "Why are educated women less likely to be employed in India? Testing competing hypotheses," The Social Policy and Labor Discussion Paper Series 27868, The World Bank.
    9. Chatterjee,Urmila & Murgai,Rinku & Rama,Martin G., 2015. "Job opportunities along the rural-urban gradation and female labor force participation in India," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7412, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chayanika Boruah & Debarshi Das, 2022. "Female Labour Force Participation Rates in Assam: Trends, Composition and Determinants," Indian Journal of Human Development, , vol. 16(1), pages 139-157, April.
    2. Amrita Datta & Tanuka Endow & Balwant Singh Mehta, 2020. "Education, Caste and Women’s Work in India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(2), pages 387-406, June.
    3. Chaudhary, Ruchika. & Verick, Sher., 2014. "Female labour force participation in India and beyond," ILO Working Papers 994867893402676, International Labour Organization.
    4. Stephan Klasen & Janneke Pieters, 2015. "What Explains the Stagnation of Female Labor Force Participation in Urban India?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 29(3), pages 449-478.
    5. Nabanita Datta Gupta & Debasish Nandy & Suddhasil Siddhanta, 2020. "“Opt out” or kept out? The effect of stigma, structure, selection, and sector on the labor force participation of married women in India," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 927-948, August.
    6. Deeksha Tayal & Sourabh Paul, 2021. "Labour Force Participation Rate of Women in Urban India: An Age-Cohort-Wise Analysis," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 64(3), pages 565-593, September.
    7. Priyanka, Sadia, 2020. "Do female politicians matter for female labor market outcomes? Evidence from state legislative elections in India," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    8. Chakraborty, Tanika & Mukherjee, Anirban & Rachapalli, Swapnika Reddy & Saha, Sarani, 2018. "Stigma of sexual violence and women’s decision to work," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 226-238.
    9. Sanghamitra Kanjilal-Bhaduri & Francesco Pastore, 2018. "Returns to Education and Female Participation Nexus: Evidence from India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 61(3), pages 515-536, September.
    10. Mohammad Niaz Asadullah & Zaki Wahhaj, 2019. "Female Seclusion from Paid Work: A Social Norm or Cultural Preference?," Working Papers ECARES 2019-10, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    11. Seneviratne, Prathi, 2020. "Gender wage inequality during Sri Lanka’s post-reform growth: A distributional analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    12. Farzana Afridi & Taryn Dinkelman & Kanika Mahajan, 2018. "Why are fewer married women joining the work force in rural India? A decomposition analysis over two decades," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 783-818, July.
    13. Esha Chatterjee & Reeve D. Vanneman, 2022. "Women's Low Employment Rates in India: Cultural and Structural Explanations," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 48(2), pages 445-474, June.
    14. Rajshri Jayaraman & Bisma Khan, 2023. "Does co-residence with parents-in-law reduce women's employment in India?," Working Papers tecipa-747, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    15. Mahapatro, Sandhya Rani, 2013. "Declining Trends in Female Labour Force Participation in India: Evidence from NSSO," MPRA Paper 44373, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Klasen, Stephan & Pieters, Janneke, 2012. "Push or Pull? Drivers of Female Labor Force Participation during India's Economic Boom," IZA Discussion Papers 6395, IZA Network @ LISER.
    17. Antara Bhattacharyya & Sushil Kr. Haldar, 2020. "Does U Feminisation Work in Female Labour Force Participation Rate? India: A Case Study," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(1), pages 143-160, March.
    18. Rajshri Jayaraman & Bisma Khan, 2023. "Does Co-Residence with Parents-In-Law Reduce Women’s Employment in India?," CESifo Working Paper Series 10238, CESifo.
    19. Kanjilal-Bhaduri, Sanghamitra & Pastore, Francesco, 2018. "Returns to Education and Female Work Force Participation Nexus: Evidence from India," GLO Discussion Paper Series 162, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    20. Dhanaraj, Sowmya & Mahambare, Vidya, 2019. "Family structure, education and women’s employment in rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 17-29.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:38:y:2018:i:31. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Editorial Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.