Shackled to the Soil? Inherited Land, Birth Order, and Labor Mobility

A. Nilesh Fernando

Journal of Human Resources, 2022, vol. 57, issue 2, 491-524

Abstract: The inheritance of wealth promotes occupational choice, but may restrict it where its use is constrained by limited markets and cultural norms. This work investigates the effects of inheriting agricultural land in rural India and finds that while larger inheritances, on average, increase future household consumption, firstborn sons do not experience these gains. For firstborns, inheriting land reduces migration and entry into nonagricultural work. In contrast, inheriting land does not influence occupational choice or migration for latter-born sons. I attribute these differences, in part, to a cultural norm of parental support incumbent on firstborns and its interaction with inherited land.

JEL-codes: C26 J24 J62 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
Note: DOI: 10.3368/jhr.57.2.0219-10014R2
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://jhr.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/57/2/491
A subscription is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.

Related works:
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:uwp:jhriss:v:57:y:2022:i:2:p:491-524

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Human Resources from University of Wisconsin Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().