There are over 60 million “missing women” across India. Why?
UC Merced Assistant Professor Anil Menon and coauthors Mark Dincecco (University of Michigan at Ann Arbor), James Fenske (University of Warwick), and Bishnupriya Gupta (University of Warwick - Department of Economics) report on their findings from using data spanning the past millennium in their project "Conflict and Gender Norms" and will be presenting at the Empirical Studies of Conflict (ESOC) 2024 Annual Meeting October 18-19, 2024 at UCLA.
Abstract: We study the relationship between exposure to historical conflict involving heavy weaponry and male-favoring gender norms. We argue that the physical nature of such conflict produced cultural norms favoring males and male offspring. We focus on spatial variation in gender norms across India, a dynamic developing economy in which gender inequality persists. We show robust evidence that areas with high exposure to pre-colonial conflict are significantly more likely to exhibit male-favoring gender norms as measured by male-biased sex ratios and crimes against women. We document how conflict-related gender norms have been transmitted over time via male-favoring folkloric traditions, the gender identity of temple gods, and patrilocal exogamy, and have been transmitted across space by migrants originally from areas with high conflict exposure. Our results shed new light on the deep roots of gender norms in the developing world, and provide a novel answer to the India’s “missing women” problem.
You can find the paper HERE.
