The Social Lives of Married Women: Peer Effects in Female Autonomy and Investments in Children

Abstract

In patriarchal societies, sticky norms affect married women s social circles, their autonomy, and the outcomes of intra-household bargaining. This paper uses primary data on women s social networks in Uttarakhand, India; the modal woman has only three friends, and over 80 percent do not have any friends of another caste. This paper examines the effect of a shock to friends empowerment on a woman s autonomy, specifically physical mobility, access to social safety nets, and employment outside the household; perceived social norms; and an outcome of household bargaining: investments in her children. The analysis instruments for endogenous network formation using a woman s age and her caste network in the village. The key peer effect is the impact of having a friend who received an empowerment shock on a woman who did not receive that shock. The results show significant peer effects on only a few of the examined measures of women s autonomy. In contrast, peer effects exist on all considered outcomes of a daughters’ diet and time spent on chores. The findings suggest a large decay rate between effects on own empowerment and peer effects. Interventions targeting child welfare through women s empowerment may generate second-order effects on intra-household decision-making, albeit with substantial decay rates, and thus benefit from targeted rather than randomized rollout. In contract, interventions on gender roles and women s autonomy may be limited by the stickiness of social norms.