Are female leaders good for education?: evidence from India
Articles
Overview
published in
publication date
- January 2012
start page
- 212
end page
- 244
issue
- 1
volume
- 4
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 1945-7782
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1945-7790
abstract
- This paper shows that the gender of politicians affects the educational levels of individuals who grow up in the districts where these politicians are elected. A unique dataset collected on politicians in India is matched with individual data by cohort and district of residence. The political data allow the identification of close elections between women and men, which yield quasi-experimental election outcomes used to estimate the causal effect of the gender of politicians. Increasing female political representation increases the probability that an individual will attain primary education in urban areas, but not in rural areas, and not in the sample as a whole