Intergenerational Co-residence and Women’s Employment in Urban India

Re-emerging joint families and declining female labour force participation rates (FLFPR) are the two paradoxical consequences of India’s steady urbanisation over the past few decades. In this backdrop, our study is motivated to examine the causal link between intergenerational co-residence and married women’s employment status in urban India. Exploiting housing affordability in the locality as an instrument for co-residence with in-laws, we find significant negative impact of such traditional but still relevant social institution on women’s labour force participation. We identify access to pooled financial resources and lack of decision-making authority relating to work participation as the key drivers of this phenomenon. However, co-residence does not act as a barrier to women’s work in families characterised by lower economic status. Public policies encouraging family nuclearisation are to accelerate the process of household transformation which in turn would promote women’s work in urban India.