Drawing data from the India Human Development Survey 2011 and the year of the first election with reserved seats for women pradhans, I estimate the effect of the Panchayati Raj institutions on age and autonomy over marriage. Results indicate that women in local government decrease the likelihood...

Marriage is the single most important economic transaction and social transition in the lives of young people. Yet little is known about the economics of marriage in much of the developing world. This paper examines the economics of marriage in North Africa, where asymmetric rights in marriage...

Over the last half-century, the role of women in society has changed substantially. However, the gender income gap and the difference in labour force participation persist. Akerlof and Kranton introduce the concept of identity from sociology and social psychology at the economic analysis; based...

Relative to developed countries, there are far fewer women than men in parts of the developing world. Estimates suggest that more than 200 million women are demographically 'missing' worldwide. To explain the global 'missing women' phenomenon, research has mainly focused on excess female...

Divorce and widowhood followed by remarriage are common for women in Africa. A key question is how such discontinuous marital trajectories affect women's wellbeing. Women's marital trajectories in Senegal are described and correlated with measures of voice, resource constraints, and wellbeing as...

In this paper, we explore the links between polygyny and female labour supply in Senegal using a nationally representative survey. In a reduced-form approach, we first measure the impact of polygyny on participation using a joint model of spouse participation. The identification of the impact of...

This paper considers arguments about Islam and women's welfare, and, at greater length, how legal systems with Islamic elements treat women, with a focus on how women fare in Islamic family courts. Key methodological issues include how to focus on real-world views and practices rather than only...

This paper examines the impact of gender based violence against women and girls (GBV), in the environment the children live in, on school attendance, school achievement, as well as boys' and girls' dropouts. Based on the sixth phase of the Demographic and Health Surveys from 18 sub-Saharan...

This paper analyses whether living in a locality with high crime against women affects the probability of early marriage-that is, marriage before the legal age of marriage of girls. We hypothesize that parents who perceive themselves to live in a high-crime locality would marry their daughters...

The impact of childbirth on the labour market participation of women has been discussed extensively in the context of developed countries, constraints on mothers labour market participation and earnings being characterized as the motherhood penalty . In the developing country context, and...