Annika Lindskog och Heather Congdon Fors

The research project will examine inequalities in opportunities, social norms and the potential for change in a number of outcomes that have a major impact on women’s well-being in Africa and India: teenage marriage, teenage childbirth, high fertility, intimate partner violence and female genital mutilation (FGM).

The research team will map the extent to which these outcomes persist across generations. The degree of persistence within families is relevant in much the same way as measures of inequality in outcomes. It indicates the extent to which family background determines women’s well-being – in other words, the degree of inequality of opportunity.

The researchers will then investigate whether these outcomes and the norms associated with them can be influenced. They will study both development projects in Africa funded through international aid and programmes in India that provide financial support to families with girls who meet certain conditions.

For the African development projects, geocoded data on outcomes will be matched with geocoded data on the projects. By exploiting variation across both time and place, the researchers will be able to identify causal effects. The Indian programmes vary in areas such as their focus and eligibility conditions. Here, the research team will use information on factors including programme conditions and geographical coverage to identify causal effects.

Unlike much of the previous research, the project will not only estimate average effects but also examine which women benefit from the interventions – and whether they reduce inequality of opportunity. The researchers will also investigate the role of social norms in determining how effective different policy interventions are.