Effect of political decentralization and female leadership on institutional births and child mortality in rural Bihar, India

Santosh Kumar and Nishith Prakash
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Santosh Kumar Gautam

Social Science & Medicine, 2017, vol. 185, issue C, 171-178

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate the impacts of political decentralization and women reservation in local governance on institutional births and child mortality in the state of Bihar, India. Using the difference-in-differences methodology, we find a significant positive association between political decentralization and institutional births. We also find that the increased participation of women at local governance led to an increased survival rate of children belonging to richer households. We argue that our results are consistent with female leaders having policy preference for women and child well-being.

Keywords: Gender quota; Political decentralization; Institutional delivery; Child mortality; Bihar; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953617302368
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Effect of Political Decentralization and Female Leadership on Institutional Births and Child Mortality in Rural Bihar, India (2017)
Working Paper: Effect of Political Decentralization and Female Leadership on Institutional Births and Child Mortality in Rural Bihar, India (2017)
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:eee:socmed:v:185:y:2017:i:c:p:171-178

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.04.013

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().