The power of TV: Cable television and women's status in India
2007, Robert Jensen and Emily Oster, Watson Institute for International Studies - Brown University, University of Chicago & NBER
Cable and satellite television have grown rapidly throughout the developing world. The availability of cable and satellite television exposes viewers to new information about the outside world, which may affect individual attitudes and behaviours. This paper explores the effect of the introduction of cable television on gender attitudes in rural India. Using a three-year individual-level panel dataset, the study finds that the introduction of cable television is associated with improvements in women's status. The study also finds significant increases in reported autonomy, decreases in the reported acceptability of beating and decreases in reported son preference. The authors find increases in female school enrolment and decreases in fertility (primarily via increased birth spacing). The effects 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. We argue that the results are not driven by pre-existing differential trends. These results have important policy implications, as India and other countries attempt to decrease bias against women (Author Annotation).