The great Indian demonetization and gender gap in health outcomes: Evidence from two Indian states

Md Nazmul Ahsan and Sounak Thakur

Economics & Human Biology, 2024, vol. 53, issue C

Abstract: We utilize the timing of India’s 2016 demonetization policy to examine whether a negative macroeconomic shock disproportionately affects women’s health outcomes relative to men’s. Our empirical framework considers women as the treated group and men as the comparison group. Using data from the National Family Health Survey-4 and a household fixed effects model, we find that the induced income shock leads to a 4% decline in hemoglobin for women as compared to the pre-demonetization level. This corresponds to a 21% increase in the gender gap in hemoglobin. The result is further validated with an event study and a variety of robustness checks. An examination of food consumption suggests that this pattern is possibly driven by a widening male–female gap in the consumption of iron-rich foods.

Keywords: Macroeconomic shock; Demonetization; Health; Discrimination; Gender-gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 I15 J16 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:53:y:2024:i:c:s1570677x24000212

DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101369

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