MGNREGA, paid work and women’s empowerment

Fernanda Bárcia de. Mattos and Sukti. Dasgupta

ILO Working Papers from International Labour Organization

Abstract: This paper examines the nexus between legislation, paid employment, women’s empowerment and transformative gender equality in India. Using a sample of married women from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), we find that the government legislated rural employment guarantee, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), has been instrumental in ensuring paid employment for women – for many married women it is the first opportunity for paid work. We also find paid employment and MGNREGA had positive and significant effects on women’s control over household decisions. However, we do not find enough evidence to suggest a transformative impact in terms of breaking the cycle of disadvantage, proxied by the timethe older girl child spends in school.

Keywords: womens empowerment; gender equality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 p.) pages
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-hme
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Published in Employment working paper series

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ilo:ilowps:994974190802676

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