Pande's new research shows the impact of gender quotas on girls' aspirations in India

To be a young girl in certain Indian villages now is an opportunity --- the 1993 national quota law requiring a third of local village councils to be led by women has changed the way a new generation of girls envision their future. Rohini Pande, Mohammed Kamal Professor of Public Policy, HKS and WAPPP faculty adviser, and colleagues recently published new research analyzing the impact of gender quotas on girls' aspirations in Indian villages.

The paper:
Female Leadership Raises Aspirations and Educational Attainment for Girls: A Policy Experiment in India (with Lori Beaman, Esther Duflo, and Petia Topolava). Sciencexpress DOI: 10.1126/science.1212382, January 12, 2012. Reprint January 25, 2012.


Media coverage:

Female politicians point the way towards equality

Financial Times

As debate rages over the use of gender quotas in the boardroom, an increasing number of countries are introducing them to further women’s representation in the political domain. While some dismiss the quota system as one that clashes with the ideals of the democratic process, there is evidence that these laws help create female role models, and improve educational and professional opportunities for young women.

In India, good things happen when women are in charge

The Globe and Mail
Rohini Pande's research shows that having women on local government dramatically changed the beliefs of young girls about what they can do with their lives.

Gender Quotas Boost Achievement for Girls, New Study Finds

January 12, 2012
By Doug Gavel
Published in the HKS News

Rohini Pande, Mohammed Kamal Professor 

of Public Policy

"Our study shows that, in the Indian context, 
the positive effect of exposure to a female 
leader dominated any possible backlash, 
probably because it gave women a chance 
to demonstrate that they are capable leaders," 
writes Pande.

The use of gender quotas to achieve equal opportunity is a controversial political strategy, but one that seems to be achieving positive results in India. A new research paper co-authored by Harvard Kennedy School Professor Rohini Pande finds that the system designating female leaders for selected village councils in India has resulted in substantive gains for girls in those villages -- both in terms of aspirations and educational outcomes.

"Female Leadership Raises Aspirations and Educational Attainment for Girls: A Policy Experiment in India" is published in the January 12th edition of the journal Science.

In their research the authors analyzed data gleaned from more than 8000 surveys of adolescents and their parents in almost 500 villages, a third of which are randomly selected to reserve a seat for a female leader, called a "Pradhan," on the village council. The data showed that, "compared to villages that were never reserved, the gender gap in aspirations closed by 25% in parents and 32% in adolescents in villages assigned to a female leader for two election cycles."

The authors also conclude that girls raised in villages with a female Pradhan were more likely to score higher in school exams than girls from other villages, while test scores for boys remained roughly the same.

"These results show that laws can help create role models by opening opportunities that were previously unavailable to a group, and this increased opportunity does not diminish the aspirations of those outside the group," the authors argue. "Our study shows that, in the Indian context, the positive effect of exposure to a female leader dominated any possible backlash, probably because it gave women a chance to demonstrate that they are capable leaders. And, perhaps most importantly, our study establishes that the role model effect reaches beyond the realm of aspirations into the concrete, with real educational and time-use impacts."

The study is co-authored by Lori Beaman, Department of Economics, Northwestern University; Esther Duflo, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Petia Topalova, International Monetary Fund.

Rohini Pande is Mohammed Kamal Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her research examines how the design of democratic institutions and government regulation affects policy outcomes and citizen well-being, especially in South Asia. She has taught at Yale University, MIT and Columbia.

Ill-effects of corruption

In the Business Line article, 'Ill-effects of corruption', discusses WAPPP faculty adviser Rohini Pande's paper on corruption.

Against this backdrop, a just published study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) titled Corruption in the Developing Countries (by Benjamin A.Olken & Rohini Pande) throws up some interesting insights into the perennially problematic issue.

Claiming that recent years have witnessed a phenomenal breadth in economists' ability to measure corruption, the authors say this has led to a new generation of well-identified microeconomic studies. 

They make no bones about stating that while there exists ‘robust evidence' that corruption responds to standard economic incentive theory, effects of anti-corruption policies often ‘attenuate as officials find alternate strategies to pursue rents'.