 Do Labor Market Opportunities Affect Young Women's Work and Family Decisions? Experimental Evidence from IndiaRobert Jensen The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2012, vol. 127, issue 2, 753-792 Abstract: Do labor market opportunities for women affect marriage and fertility decisions? We provided three years of recruiting services to help young women in randomly selected rural Indian villages get jobs in the business process outsourcing industry. Because the industry was so new at the time of the study, there was almost no awareness of these jobs, allowing us in effect to exogenously increase women's labor force opportunities from the perspective of rural households. We find that young women in treatment villages were significantly less likely to get married or have children during this period, choosing instead to enter the labor market or obtain more schooling or postschool training. Women also report wanting to have fewer children and to work more steadily throughout their lifetime, consistent with increased aspirations for a career. Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press. Date: 2012 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:127:y:2012:i:2:p:753-792 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article The Quarterly Journal of Economics is currently edited by Robert J. Barro, Lawrence F. Katz, Nathan Nunn, Andrei Shleifer and Stefanie Stantcheva More articles in The Quarterly Journal of Economics from President and Fellows of Harvard College |
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