We exploit the implementation of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to identify exogenous shifts in mothers' labor force participation and its impact on their children's educational outcomes. Using child level panel data, we find that a mother's participation in the labor force...

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is a scheme formulated by the Government of India for the uplifting of the poorest of the poor in rural India. It has been implemented in all the states of India. The effectiveness of any scheme, especially one aimed at rural empowerment, can be measured...

One of the four goals of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is the provision of a, “Strong social safety net for the vulnerable groups by providing a fall-back employment source, when other employment alternatives are scarce or inadequate” (Ministry of Rural Development, 2008, p....

The NREGS is an ambitious public works program intended to provide a basic safety net to the rural poor in India. Institutionalised in 2005, it is currently the largest public works program in the world. Despite its scale and the political importance attached to the program, its success in...

Does existing inequality hinder redistributive policies that aim to help the poor? This paper answers this question under a widely used redistributive policy in developing countries--public works schemes. Using district-level data on land ownership distributions and the implementations of the...