Economic Empowerment and Mental Health: Evidence from India

We use state-level amendments to inheritance laws in India as a natural experiment to examine the long-term effect of a large-scale women’s empowerment policy on psychological well-being. Exploiting variation in the timing and geography of the Hindu Succession Act Amendment within a difference-in-differences framework, we find that women exposed to the reform exhibit significantly better mental health outcomes in later life. Specifically, the reform reduced the likelihood of depressive symptoms by 5.9–6.4 percentage points and improved a composite mental health index by 0.08σ to 0.093σ. Falsification tests show no effects among individuals from the same state-cohort groups belonging to communities to which the reform did not apply. We document suggestive evidence of improvements in multiple socioeconomic indicators as potential mechanisms for the downstream effects on mental health: treated women are 4.2 percentage points more likely to belong to land-owning households, and treated women report a 0.11σ increase in autonomy. These results highlight the long-term benefits of women’s empowerment policies in improving their mental well-being.