Cable Television and Women's Status in India

A research paper titled, The Power of TV: Cable Television and Women's Status in India, authored by Robert Jensen and Emily Oster finds that the introduction of cable television is associated with improvements in women's status. It reveals significant increases in reported autonomy, decreases in the reported acceptability of beating and decreases in reported son preference.

The paper also finds increases in female school enrollment and decreases in fertility (primarily via increased birth spacing). The effects observed are large, equivalent in some cases to about five years of education in the cross section, and move gender attitudes of individuals in rural areas much closer to those in urban areas.

Read the complete paper here.

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