A Review Of World Bank Report On Electrification And Women’s Empowerment Evidence From Rural India

Abstract

This World Bank report on Electrification and Women’s Empowerment Evidence from Rural India investigates the causal link between electricity access and women’s empowerment, using a large gender-disaggregated data set on India. Empowerment is measured by women’s decision-making ability, mobility, financial autonomy, reproductive freedom, and social participation. Using propensity score matching, the study finds that electrification enhances all measures of women’s empowerment and is associated with an eleven percentage point increase in the overall empowerment index. Employment and education are identified as the two most important causal channels through which electrification enables empowerment.

Key words: World Bank, Electrification, Women Empowerment.

Introduction:

This paper is the review of A World Bank Report on Electrification and Women Empowerment Evidence from Rural India. Women’s empowerment has been widely promoted as a key development goal. It is not only desirable in itself, but also has been linked to faster economic growth (World Bank 2011). When women have greater bargaining power to make household decisions, children’s education and health outcomes are better and the well-being of families improves (Duflo 2012). Giving women more power also changes communities’ choices in important ways, often resulting in higher overall efficiency of the society (Udry 1996; Goldstein and Udry 2005). Empirical studies show that electrification disproportionally benefits women and girls. In households with electricity, women spend less time on household chores and are more likely to participate in income-generating activities, and girls have higher educational attainment (Samad and Zhang, 2016, 2017, 2018; Kohlin et al. 2012; IEA 2008).

This report examines whether electricity access enhances women’s empowerment at the household level, defined as their ability to make strategic life choices, control resources, and craft decisions that affect important life outcomes (World Bank 2002). To the best of their knowledge, it is the first paper that provides empirical evidence on the causal link between electricity access and a wide range of empowerment indicators. This report analysis is based on data from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) carried out in 2011/2012. This survey provides a broad range of information on women’s involvement in household decision making. The survey covers more than 40,000 Indian households, including more than 200,000 individuals.

Empowerment manifests itself in various aspects of life, ranging from women’s participation in household decision-making to control over resources and the ability to move freely in public places. To measure different dimensions of empowerment, they constructed five empowerment indexes extracted through factor analysis of a wide variety of observed indicators: decision making is measured by a woman’s ability to make decisions on her work, household meal choices, children’s marriage and other aspects of her and family’s choices; mobility is measured by a woman’s ability to travel alone to various places outside her home; financial autonomy is measured by a woman’s ability to make decisions on different purchases and control over financial assets; reproductive freedom is measured by contraceptive use and other childbearing decisions; and social participation is measured by membership in various social and self-help groups. They also construct an overall empowerment index based on the five indicators. Analysis of the effects of electrification is generally riddled with concerns about endogeneity at both the household and village levels. To the extent that electrification status is correlated with unobserved factors, such as a woman’s ability and family and community background, a correlation between the presence of electricity and rising empowerment would not necessarily indicate causation. To address the potential endogeneity concern, they use propensity-score weighted estimates to measure the average treatment effects of electrification on various empowerment indexes. Results from the analysis shows that electrification has a positive impact on all five latent indexes of women’s empowerment and the overall empowerment measure. Gaining access to the electric grid on average increases overall empowerment by 11 percentage points, all else being equal.

They also examine the mechanisms underlying the causal effects of electrification on empowerment. They hypothesize that access to electricity may empower women in several ways. First, it can increase women’s labor force participation (Dinkelman 2011; Samad and Zhang 2017; Khandker et al. 2014). Women with an autonomous income are likely to have greater bargaining power and control over assets within the household. Second, electrification may lead to better health outcomes for women. Healthy women are better able to actively participate in society and markets and take collective action to advance their own agency and 4 empowerment. Third, electrification enables greater exposure to electronic media, such as television and radio. Improved access to information may broaden horizons about opportunities for women’s economic empowerment, and social and political participation. Fourth, electrification can lead to better education outcomes for girls (Khandker, Barnes and Samad 2012; Khandker et al. 2014; Samad and Zhang 2016 2017). Better education outcomes for girls could have a catalytic effect on almost all dimensions of development, including women’s empowerment over the long term (Duflo 2012).

Based on gendered indicators included in the 2012 survey, they group empowerment into five factors indicating five types of latent abilities:

1. Decision-making is the ability to make decisions about various aspects of one’s own life and household affairs. They combine five indicators to construct this ability: whether a woman can make decisions alone about her own work, about her medical treatment, about her children’s medical treatment, about children’s marriage, and about items to cook on a daily basis.
2. Mobility is the ability to move about independently. It is based on the ability to visit various places, including health centers and friends’ or relatives’ homes; to travel a short distance by trains or buses; having traveled outside a rural area to a city or town during the 5 years preceding the survey; and having traveled outside the state during the five years preceding the survey.
3. Financial autonomy is the ability to make purchase decisions and access assets or finance. It is based on four attributes: the ability to purchase expensive household durables, such as a refrigerator or television set; the ability to purchase land or other real estate; possession of a bank account; and having her name on the ownership or rental document of her domicile.
4. Reproductive freedom is the ability to make reproductive choices. They consider three measures for this ability: whether a woman uses any contraceptives; whether she can decide how many children to have; and whether the actual or desired number of children is less than three. Literature on gender equity and reproductive outcomes mostly suggests that there is an inverse relationship between a woman’s empowerment and the number of children she has (Upadhyay et al.). The third indicator is measured by: i) the number of children for those who would not conceive any more children (either by choice, or because of sterilization), or ii) the total of current and additional desired number of children for those who want more children.
5. Social participation measures awareness of socio-political issues and membership in social groups. It is captured by membership in each of the following organizations: Mohila Mandals, self-help groups, and credit or savings groups. Mohila Mandals work to empower women in a number of ways, such as making them self-reliant and aware of their human and constitutional rights, nurturing their physical and emotional health, and providing them with vocational training and credit facilities for self-employment. A self-help group is a village-based financial organization in which members regularly save small amounts of money to create a common fund that can be used to meet their emergency needs, pool resources to become financially stable, and take out loans to support self-employment. Credit or savings groups are similar to self-help groups but more inclusive. For example, in some states ultra-poor members of the society are not covered by self-help groups but may join credit or savings groups.

Conclusion:

The analysis shows that getting access to electricity enhances women’s positions on all five dimensions of empowerment and the overall empowerment measure. However, the magnitude of improvement is small for women’s decision-making ability and reproductive freedom. Gaining access to electricity is associated with a 4.6 percentage point increase in women’s decision-making ability on intra-household resource allocation and 2.7 percentage point increase in their reproductive freedom. Women’s bargaining power, primarily involving her own well-being (such as traveling alone, having a bank account, and participating in social groups), increases by 6.9–10 percentage points because of electrification.

They also examine the potential causal mechanisms through which electrification affects women’s opportunities and empowerment. Women’s labor force participation, education, health and exposure to electronic media are identified as key intermediary factors through which electrification enhances women’s empowerment. They find that gaining access to electricity is associated with positive improvements of all four enabling factors for empowerment. They, then go on to investigate how the intermediate factors may affect women’s empowerment. They found suggestive evidence that women’s labor force participation and education are the most important determinants of women’s intra-household bargaining power. Media exposure and health outcomes during the last 30 days are also found to have positive impact on financial autonomy, reproductive freedom, and mobility. These results suggest that electricity access can be an important policy lever for empowering women. However, electrification alone is unlikely to ensure significant progress in important dimensions of women’s empowerment, in particular, their decision-making ability and reproductive freedom. Sustained efforts in improving women’s earning opportunities, education and health are important for improving women’s agency and empowerment; these enabling factors can be improved in other ways besides electrification. Policy actions targeting pervasive social norms and gender stereotypes are also needed to reduce gender inequality.

References:

1. Dinkelman, Taryn. 2011. “The Effects of Rural Electrification on Employment: New Evidence from South Africa.” American Economic Review 101(7), 3078–3108.
2. Duflo, Esther. 2012. “Women Empowerment and Economic Development.” Journal of Economic Literature, 50(4): 1051-1079.
3. Duflo, Esther. 2012. “Women Empowerment and Economic Development.” Journal of Economic Literature, 50(4): 1051-1079.
4. Goldstein, Markus, and Christopher Udry. 2005. “The Profits of Power: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment in Ghana.” Yale University Economic Growth Center Discussion Paper 929.
5. Independent Evaluation Group (IEA). 2008. The Welfare Impact of Rural Electrification : A Reassessment of the Costs and Benefits. Washington, DC.
6. Khandker, Shahidur R., Hussain A. Samad, Rubaba Ali, and Douglas F. Barnes. 2014. “Who Benefits Most from Rural Electrification? Evidence from India.” Energy Journal 35(2): 75–96
7. Kohlin, Gunnar; Erin O. Sills, Subhrendu K. Pattanayak, Christopher Wilfong. 2012. Energy Gender and Development. What are the Linkages? Where is the Evidence? Background Paper to the 2012 World Development Report. Washington DC.
8. Samad, Hussain, and Fan Zhang. 2017. “Heterogenous Effects of Rural Electrification: Evidence from Bangladesh.” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 8102. Washington DC.
9. Udry, Christopher. 1996. “Gender, Agricultural Production, and the Theory of the Household.” Journal of Political Economy 104 (5): 1010–46.
10. World Bank. 2002. Measuring Women’s Empowerment as a Variable in International Development. Background Paper Prepared for the World Bank Workshop on Poverty and Gender: New Perspectives.
11. World Bank. 2011. World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development. Washington, D.C.
12. World Bank. 2019. Policy Research Working Paper-8796 “Electrification and Women’s Empowerment Evidence from Rural India”