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Women’s Political Empowerment and Investments in Primary Schooling in India

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Abstract

Using a national district-level dataset of India composed of information on investments in primary schooling [data from the District Information Survey for Education (DISE, 2007/8)] and information on demographic characteristics of elected officials [data from the Election Commission of India (ECI, 2000/04)], we examined the relationship between women’s representation in State Legislative Assembly (SLA) seats and district-level investments in primary schooling. We used OLS regressions adjusting for confounders and spatial autocorrelation, and estimated separate models for North and South India. Women’s representation in general SLA seats typically was negatively associated with investments in primary-school amenities and teachers; women’s representation in SLA seats reserved for under-represented minorities, i.e., scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, typically was positively associated with investments in primary schooling, especially in areas addressing the basic needs of poor children. Women legislators’ gender and caste identities may shape their decisions about redistributive educational policies.

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Notes

  1. Redistributive policy refers to measures paid by one group to grant goods and services to other, relatively disadvantaged groups.

  2. The Indian government recognizes scheduled tribes, scheduled castes (Shudras), other “backward” (occupational) castes and “general” castes (Brahaman, Kshatriya, Vaishayas). The first three groups are defined as socially and economically disadvantaged and deserving of special protections.

  3. The States are Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and West Bengal. The UTs are Chandigarh, Delhi, Pondicherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

  4. Clots-Figueras (2011) finds that, in India, SC/ST women legislators have a strong effect on primary schools and general women legislators have a strong effect on middle schools.

  5. For SC/ST officials, investment in the number of primary schools has been positive where the SC/ST population has been concentrated Crost and Kambhampati (2010). Also, the effects of political reservation for SC have differed from those for ST, with the latter more aligned with concerns of the poor (Chin and Prakash 2011; Pande 2003).

  6. EGS are established in habitations where no formal school exists within 1 km and at least 15–25 children 6–14 years are out of school. Alternative learning centers serve deprived (e.g., street, migrating) children (National Portal Content Management Team 2009).

  7. The DISE also collects data on grants to schools, incentives per 100 enrolled pupils, and pupils, including enrollment, exam results, and grade-specific promotion, repetition, and drop-out.

  8. Para-teachers are full-time employees but need not be professionally qualified as teachers and are paid at a lower rate than full-time teachers.

  9. In India, scheduled caste is further subdivided into many sub groups. Since the ECI collects data on membership in the scheduled caste, as opposed to a specific denomination within scheduled caste, we treat all scheduled caste women as one.

  10. According to the Handbook for Candidates, an online publication by the Election Commission of India (ECI), both general and SC/ST women are eligible to compete from a general seat. The Handbook for Candidates says, “if you are a candidate for a general seat, that is to say, for a seat not reserved for the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes as mentioned in the preceding sub-clauses, then you must be an elector for any parliamentary constituency (vide section 4 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951)” (page 10). However, ECI reports on election results do not provide information on caste membership of those who have won general SLA seats (reports provide data on gender, political party, and performance in elections, including absolute and relative number of votes won for seats indicated as reserved or not-reserved for SC/ST). Therefore, in the current analysis, we assumed that women who won general seats in the SLAs during the years for which we have data in this analysis were not SC/ST women. Our assumption is likely to reflect the reality given that, for general SLA seats, non SC/ST candidates are likely to secure party nominations and, ultimately, win elections since the constituencies of the general SLA seats are predominantly non SC/ST. To the best of our knowledge, all prior research on general and SC/ST women legislators made the same assumption (Clots-Figueras 2011; Bhalotraa et al. 2014).

  11. Replacing the squared term with a variable for whether thresholds were reached (12.5, 16.0 %) for women’s district-level representation in SLA seats yielded similar results (available on request).

  12. Pairwise correlations among the explanatory variables were −0.03 to 0.93. Estimated variance inflation factors for these variables were 4.42–7.56, mitigating concerns of collinearity.

  13. Northern districts in India were those, which belonged to the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. Southern districts were those, which belonged to the states of Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Pondicherry, and Tamil Nadu.

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Acknowledgments

We appreciate the assistance of Ms. Rudina Sobvokiak in data preparation and of Ms. Teresa Parker and Ms. Francine Pope in manuscript preparation. We also thank Professor Nancy Folbre, the discussant for Session 167 “Gender in Developing Countries” of the 2010 meeting of the Population Association of America, for comments on a previous version of this manuscript. Any remaining errors are the responsibility of the authors. This analysis was supported by research grant 1R03HD051822-01A2 from the National Institute of Child Health and Development.

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  1. Center for Global Health and Development, Department of Global Health, School of Public Health, Boston University, 801 Massachusetts Ave, Crosstown Center, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA, 02118, USA

    Nafisa Halim

  2. Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, 1518 Clifton Rd. NE, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA

    Kathryn M. Yount & Solveig A. Cunningham

  3. Department of Sociology, Emory University, 1555 Dickey Drive, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA

    Kathryn M. Yount & Solveig A. Cunningham

  4. 7118 Willow Avenue, Takoma Park, MD, 20912, USA

    Rohini P. Pande

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Halim, N., Yount, K.M., Cunningham, S.A. et al. Women’s Political Empowerment and Investments in Primary Schooling in India. Soc Indic Res 125, 813–851 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-0870-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-0870-4

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