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Unpublished Paper
Empowering Women Through Education and Influence: An Evaluation of the Indian Mahila Samakhya Program
(2013)
  • Eeshani Kandpal, World Bank
  • Kathy Baylis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Mary Arends-Kuenning, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Abstract

Mahila Samakhya is an innovative Indian program that attempts to harness local peer networks to change social norms and empower women. While most studies focus on programs that target individuals, only a small number of papers evaluate community-level interventions. This article analyses the effect of this program on women's empowerment outcomes. We attempt to disentangle the mechanisms of the program, separately considering its eff ect on women who work and those who do not work, where the program aff ects the latter group solely through their reservation wage. We also consider the program's e ffect on non-participants, to observe whether there are spillover eff ects of treatment through information or by altering the social norm. Last, we address selection issues using two methods: first by using matching controlling for truncation and second by instrumenting for participation by exposure to the program. Using both methods we observe a significant e ffect of Mahila Samakhya on women's employment and household bargaining power.

Keywords
  • gender equality,
  • India,
  • women's empowerment,
  • social norms
Publication Date
2013
Citation Information
Eeshani Kandpal, Kathy Baylis and Mary Arends-Kuenning. "Empowering Women Through Education and Influence: An Evaluation of the Indian Mahila Samakhya Program" (2013)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/kathy_baylis/39/