81525
                           enGender Impact: The World Bank’s Gender Impact Evaluation Database



             Women's Inheritance Rights and Intergenerational Transmission of Resources in India

 Author(s)     Klaus Deininger, Aparajita Goyal, Hari Nagarajan
  Contact      Kdeininger@worldbank.org

  Country      India
Organizing
               Economic Opportunities and Access to Assets
 Theme
   Status      Completed
Intervention
             Legal Reform
  Category
   Sector      Agriculture and Rural Development
               We use inheritance patterns over three generations of individuals to assess the impact of changes in the Hindu Succession
               Act that grant daughters equal coparcenary birth rights in joint family property that were denied to daughters in the past.
  Abstract     We show that the amendment significantly increased daughters’ likelihood to inherit land, but that even after the
               amendment, substantial bias persists. Our results also indicate a robust increase in educational attainment of daughters,
               suggesting an alternative channel of wealth transfer.
 Gender
               Gender Focused Intervention
Connection
 Gender
               Women's owned property, gender disaggregated school attainment
Outcomes
 IE Design     Difference in Difference
             The traditional Hindu Succession law distinguishes individual property from joint ancestral rights. The former can be
             bequeathed at will, while the latter are limited to a group that is male-only. The act was amended by the states of Andhra
Intervention Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Karanataka in 1986, 1989, 1994 and 1994 respectively. The change in the law
             makes daughters status equal to sons and also implies that girls share in joint family property cannot be willed away by her
             father.
Intervention
             1986-1994
   Period
   Sample    The study uses the 2006 Rural Economic and Demographic Survey which collected information on 8190 rural households
 population and 72655 individuals in 16 major states of India.
Comparison
             The study compares inheritance of land to males and females by fathers who died before and after the legal reform.
 conditions
   Unit of
             Difference in Difference
  analysis
 Evaluation
             2006
   Period
             There is a clear discontinuity in the likelihood of females inheriting land at the time of the reform and a significant
             increasing trend in this variable after the reform. The reforms had a positive impact on the total value of asset transfers
   Results   women received, the share of household land they received, and their level of land ownership. Women's likelihood of
             inheriting land increases by 15 p.p. Girls, but not boys, had significantly higher levels of primary education (by .37 years)
             compared to the old regime.
  Primary
             The paper does not discuss limitations
    study

              Last updated: 14 August 2013                                                                      1
                            enGender Impact: The World Bank’s Gender Impact Evaluation Database


limitations

 Funding
                Gender Action Plan, Global Land Tools Network
  Source
                Deininger, K., Aparajita, G., & Nagarajan, H. (2013) "Women's Inheritance Rights and Intergenerational Transmission of
Reference(s)
                Resources in India," Journal Of Human Resources, 48(1), 114-141
  Link to       http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=aparajita_goyal&sei-
  Studies       redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar%3Fhl%3Den%26q%
                3DWomen%2527s%2BInheritance%2BRights%2Band%2BIntergenerational%2BTransmission%2Bof%2BResources%2B
 Microdata




               Last updated: 14 August 2013                                                                 2