This paper asks whether rising rural incomes are driving some of India’s falling female labor force participation. Identification comes from India’s vast network of gravity-driven irrigation canals, which generate exogenous variation in agricultural productivity by distributing water only to nearby lower-elevation villages. We find that canal treatment reduces the employment share in agriculture for both men and women, but labor reallocation differs by gender: men primarily shift toward non-farm employment while women primarily shift toward unpaid household production. These results show that economic growth may reinforce gender specialization when suitable nonfarm opportunities for women remain limited.
G²LM|LIC Working Paper No. 113
Income Growth and Women’s Work
Long-Run Evidence from India
- Angelica Bozzi
- Rebecca Cai
- Sam Asher