IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jdevst/v55y2019i12p2549-2571.html

Inheritance Law Reform, Empowerment, and Human Capital Accumulation: Second-Generation Effects from India

Author

Listed:
  • Klaus Deininger
  • Songqing Jin
  • Hari K. Nagarajan
  • Fang Xia

Abstract

Although many studies point towards significant positive impacts of Hindu Succession Act (HSA) reforms on females’ empowerment and access to human and physical capital, the fact that this reform also led to increased female mortality raises questions about long-term sustainability of reform effects. We use evidence from three states, one of which amended the HSA in 1994, to assess first- and second-generation effects of this reform using a triple-difference strategy. First-generation effects include greater likelihood of completing primary education, more assets brought into marriage, improved access to bank accounts, a lower share of female births, and higher female survival rates. Second-generation effects on education, time use, and health are robust and point estimates of education are larger than first-generation ones even after mothers’ endowments are controlled for, pointing to a sizeable and sustained empowerment effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Klaus Deininger & Songqing Jin & Hari K. Nagarajan & Fang Xia, 2019. "Inheritance Law Reform, Empowerment, and Human Capital Accumulation: Second-Generation Effects from India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(12), pages 2549-2571, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:55:y:2019:i:12:p:2549-2571
    DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2018.1520218
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2018.1520218
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00220388.2018.1520218?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marina Elefante & Tazeen Hasan & Marie Hyland & Natalia Mazoni Silva Martins & Tea Trumbic, 2023. "Accelerating Gender Equality Through Reforming Legal Frameworks," World Bank Publications - Reports 39875, The World Bank Group.
    2. Pandey, Vivek & Nagarajan, Hari K. & Kumar, Deepak, 2021. "Impact of Gendered Participation in market-linked value-chains on Economic Outcomes: Evidence from India," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    3. Shreya Biswas & Upasak Das & Prasenjit Sarkhel, 2024. "Duration of exposure to inheritance law in India: Examining the heterogeneous effects on empowerment," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 777-799, May.
    4. Wang, Haining & Cheng, Zhiming & Smyth, Russell, 2024. "Parental early-life exposure to land reform and household investment in children’s education," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    5. Joseph Ajefu & Efobi Uchenna & Nadia Singh & Shayequa Zeenat Ali, 2024. "Women’s Inheritance Rights and Child Health Outcomes in Kenya," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 137-150, March.
    6. Mathilde Sage, 2025. "Children are a Poor Women’s Wealth: How Inheritance Rights Affect Fertility," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2025004, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    7. Vaidehi Tandel & Arnab Dutta & Sahil Gandhi & Ashwini Narayanan, 2023. "Women’s right to property and the child quantity-quality trade-off: evidence from India," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(4), pages 2967-3003, October.
    8. Davis, Lewis S. & Williamson, Claudia R., 2022. "Individualism and women's economic rights," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 579-597.
    9. World Bank, "undated". "Reshaping Norms," World Bank Publications - Reports 37121, The World Bank Group.
    10. Asuka Yamamoto, 2025. "Amendment of the Hindu Succession Act and Women’s Human Capital in India: Evidence from the National Family Health Survey," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 37(3), pages 569-592, June.
    11. Isis Gaddis & Rahul Lahoti & Hema Swaminathan, 2022. "Women's Legal Rights and Gender Gaps in Property Ownership in Developing Countries," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 48(2), pages 331-377, June.
    12. Ali, Daniel Ayalew & Deininger, Klaus & Duponchel, Marguerite, 2017. "New Ways to Assess and Enhance Land Registry Sustainability: Evidence from Rwanda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 377-394.
    13. Minali Grover & Ajay Sharma, 2025. "Women's inheritance rights reforms and impact on women's empowerment: evidence from India," Papers 2510.10437, arXiv.org.
    14. Kocabıçak, Ece & Dildar, Yasemin, 2025. "Women’s labour force participation in developing countries: The impact of gendered landownership rights," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).

    More about this item

    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:taf:jdevst:v:55:y:2019:i:12:p:2549-2571. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FJDS20 .

    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.