Book Project

 

Left Behind or Left Ahead?


Implications of Male Migration on Women’s Political

Engagement in India (Forthcoming

at the Journal of Politics)


PDF | Ideas of India Podcast | Summary for Ideas for India

  • Best Paper by a Graduate Student Award (2022), APSA Migration and Citizenship Section

  • NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (2020)

  • Honorable Mention (2020), Empirical Gender Network Prize

How does the temporary absence of men from the household due to migration affect female political engagement? While studies on gender and politics have established the centrality of the household, they have largely overlooked how temporary changes in household composition shape political engagement. Using original data from a survey experiment (n=642) in Bihar, India, I show that the absence of male members, particularly a woman’s husband can lift implicit restrictions on female political engagement. Drawing on a primary survey (n=1900), and a nationally representative panel (n=24000), I argue that male migration, a significant global phenomenon resulting in routine absence of men, is leading to the feminization of political engagement. Through an increase in exposure to the public sphere, women make meaningful claims on the state, participate in civic activities, and discuss politics. Unlike existing resource-based theories, I find that female political engagement can increase even in the absence of financial autonomy

 

Effectiveness of Gender Quotas

 

Mere Proxies or Genuine Leaders?


Re-examining the Effectiveness of Gender Quotas

with Priyadarshi Amar and Apurva Bamezai

(Working Paper)

Despite the positive impacts of gender quotas, concerns remain that women leaders serve as political proxies for male family members. The magnitude of this phenomenon however remains unknown. We develop and validate a low-cost, scalable phone-based measure of proxy leadership in local village councils: does a female politician personally respond to a governance-related phone survey? Phone surveys of over 1,100 local politicians across two Indian states reveal a striking gender gap: female politicians are 37.5% less likely than male politicians to respond to our survey themselves. Our results also highlight significant variation in proxy status among female politicians. Further, an inperson citizen survey (N=969) in a subset of village councils shows that citizens in councils where the representative responded to our survey themselves were also 66% more likely to correctly identify their female leader, thereby validating the phone measure as a robust predictor of proxy leadership. Rather than undermine the effectiveness of gender quotas, our study offers a practical tool that underscores the variation in, and barriers to, substantive representation.

Other Writing

 

What Lies Behind India’s Rising Female Voter Turnout


Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - India Elects Series (link)

In India, as in many democracies around the world, there has long been a discernible gender gap in citizens’ political participation. For decades, Indian men were significantly more likely to cast their ballots on election day compared to women. It is noteworthy, therefore, that in the country’s 2019 general election, the historic gap between male and female turnout came to an end; for the first time on record, women voters turned out to vote at higher rates than men. Predictions for India’s upcoming 2024 general election suggest that this trend is likely to continue. Therefore, the increase in female turnout in what remains a largely male-dominated political arena raises two important questions. Why is women’s turnout rising? And what impact might this have on electoral dynamics as India heads into the 2024 general elections?