Health and the Political Agency of Women
Sonia Bhalotra and
Irma Clots-Figueras
Economics Discussion Papers from University of Essex, Department of Economics
Abstract:
We investigate whether women?s political representation in state legislatures improves public provision of antenatal and childhood health services in the districts from which they are elected, arguing that the costs of poor services in this domain fall disproportionately upon women. Using large representative data samples from India and accounting for potential endogeneity of politician gender and the sample composition of births, we find that a 10 percentage point increase in women?s representation results in a 2.1 percentage point reduction in neonatal mortality, and we elucidate mechanisms. Women?s political representation may be an under-utilised tool for addressing health in developing countries.
Keywords: political identity; global health; gender; mortality; health; social preferences; India. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)
Downloads: (external link)
https://repository.essex.ac.uk/9006/ original version (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: Health and the Political Agency of Women (2014)
Working Paper: Health and the Political Agency of Women (2011)
Working Paper: Health and the Political Agency of Women (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:esx:essedp:9006
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Discussion Papers Administrator, Department of Economics, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, U.K.
ueco@essex.ac.uk
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in Economics Discussion Papers from University of Essex, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Essex Economics Web Manager (econoweb@essex.ac.uk).