Gendered Transport Subsidy and its Short Run Effect on Female Employment: Evidence from Delhi’s Pink Pass Scheme

How does gender-specific transport subsidy for urban women affect their participation in the labour force? To answer this question, we study the Government of Delhi’s pink pass scheme that made bus travel free for women since October 2019. Using the Time Use Survey of 2019 and employing two alternative difference-in-difference (DID) strategies and a triple difference (DDD) approach, we find weak evidence that the policy increased paid work and employment of women at the intensive margin by 30 to 50 minutes. Strikingly, we find that women from economically marginalized households experience large and statistically significant increases in paid work and employment both at the extensive and intensive margins. The pink pass scheme increases employment of women from economically marginalized group by 24 percentage points at the extensive margin and by 150 minutes at the intensive margin. Our study has important insights for policies addressing supply-side bottlenecks in improving female participation in paid work.