In India, a strong cultural preference for sons often leads to sex-selective abortion or neglect of girls in early childhood. We explore the possibility that female electoral successes increase girl survival. We leverage the timing and location of births to over 500,000 mothers between 1977-2004 to estimate whether the gender composition of elected district representatives affect the probability of a female birth and postnatal survival. Our research design exploits the quasirandomness of female victories in close man-woman elections in a regression discontinuity framework. We find that an increase in elected female representatives in the district lowers the probability of a girl birth, but improves girls’ postnatal survival. We show the reduced probability of a girl birth is driven by fertility declines in the presence of son preference. In addition, we find that the effect of female electoral success reverses after political reform or policy favoring girls is introduced, suggesting the impact of individual victories depends on a broader based commitment to raise the status of women.
Biswas, Nabaneeta, Christopher Cornwell, and Laura V. Zimmermann. “Female Electoral Success and the Survival of Girl Children in India.” Presented at the ACEGD 2023 Conference, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, Sept. 13, 2023.
