TV, female empowerment and demographic transition in rural India

Transcription

1 TV, female empowerment and demographic transition in rural India Presented at LIDC Seminar on Replication, 6/6/2012 Vegard Iversen, University of Manchester & Richard Palmer-Jones, University of East Anglia This work has largely been funded by the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie)

2 Jensen, R., & Oster, E. (2009). The Power of TV: Cable Television and Women s Status in India *. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 124(3), Top ranked economics journal Impact Factor: Yr impact factor: 8.05 Cited by 77 (Google Scholar, Jan, 2012) the introduction of cable television is associated with significant decreases in the reported acceptability of domestic violence toward women [significant] decreases in son preference, increases in women s autonomy and decreases in fertility. increases school enrollment for younger children, perhaps through increased participation of women in household decision making.

3 JO find rapid pro-social improvements in the same year that cable TV arrives in a village JO suggest, cable TV portrays urban lifestyles Women are more empowered New role models Affecting attitudes towards and liberties of women in the home and workplace Cite results of effects of (mainly pro-social) programming in Brazil But - patriarchal attitudes and norms are typically understood to be rigid and deeply entrenched in village India. Longer term trends such as such as juvenile sex-ratio continue to deteriorate

4 Continuing female disadvantage e.g. juvenile sex ratios Census year population child (0-6) TV has spread very widely, and become main source of media even in rural India Hence, JO conclusion very surprising

5 Also what s worrying about this figure?

6 Survey of Aging in Rural India (SARI): three year panel data (household and individual), 2001, 2002 and households with woman over 50; low attrition (108 4%) five states (Bihar, Haryana, Delhi, Goa and Tamil Nadu) 180 randomly sampled villages Women only interviewed n=3053 (*3 -> 9,159) Survey instruments explicitly modelled on female autonomy and attitude modules in NFHS II ( ). Own survey of cable operators in Tamil Nadu District Information System on Education (DISE) (administrative) monitoring data for all villages in 19 randomly chosen Blocks from 5 Districts of Tamil Nadu (with low cable penetration in 1998). Own survey of date of arrival of cable TV in selected blocks 1.

7 Analysis s ivt vt iv t ivt ivt c is the measure of cable access in village v, year t; vt s is outcome for individual i in village v in year t; ivt c X individual fixed effects, are year dummies, and X iv t ivt are other controls SARI Tabular and graphic descriptives Panel analysis (xtreg) Individual responses to village level treatment DISE Time series (prais - Prais-Winston estimation) Village level enrolment rates Graphic of enrolment (total) by year by year of cable access

8 Replication Replication data & code provided by authors SARI final estimation data & analysis code DISE Raw data, data preparation & analysis code Checking Published results reproduced exactly with data and code tables using SARI and DISE data DISE data preparation coded contains minor coding error Has significant effect

9 enrolment enrolment enrolment enrolment enrolment enrolment enrolment enrolment enrolment enrolment enrolment enrolment J&O data Authors data Figure 7: Enrolment of cohort 6-7 year in 2002 by year and access to cable Figure 7: Enrolment of cohort 6-7 year in 2002 by year and access to cable year olds added to 6-10 aggregate but not 6-14 aggregate in cohorts year year year year got cable 2002 Has significant effect on Figure 7 (see next slide) never got cable got cable 2003 never got cable DISE analysis of little value Mistake reduces estimated effect year year year year got cable 2005 Jensen & Oster DISE variables never got cable got cable 2006 never got cable got cable 2004 never got cable got cable 2007 never got cable VI & RPJ DISE variables Lack of covariates Shows rising which could account for endogenous enrolment CABLE in placement villages with and without access to cable TV! got cable 2002 never got cable got cable 2005 never got cable year got cable 2003 never got cable year got cable 2006 never got cable year got cable 2004 never got cable year got cable 2007 Shows falling enrolment in villages with and without access to cable TV never got cable

10 SARI main empirical specification Units women respondents Treatment variable is Village has cable Controls INTERACTED WITH YEAR Village control - population density, electricity and distance to nearest town Individual controls Baseline - education Annual - income per capita, age (quadratic), Year dummies Identification 90 already had cable in get cable in 2002 & 3 69 never had in this period All villages in Delhi already had cable TV in , 4, 6 & 6 added in Bihar, Goa, Haryana, and TN) Errors clustered at village level

11 is actually a multi-level model Cable present in year t year t Outcomes for female i in village in year y Individual fixed effects controls for individual i of village v in year t, including the log of household income per capita (the household in which the respondent resides) and her age and age squared. Age does not appear separately, but age-squared does controls for individual i in village v which are fixed for the base year of the panel period (2001), including years of education and sex, and do not vary over the panel period; controls for village v set in the year 2001, including the log of population density, the log of distance to nearest large town, and whether the village is electrified (which does not change over the panel period); Year * state dummies

12 JO s main results strongly significant negative coefficients on village has cable Low r-square Effects survive when testing for future access to cable Critique Odd outcome variable construction Missing controls including TV watching, ethnicity, migration - others

13 Outcome variables (y ivy ) Index of attitudes to wife beating acceptable if: wife cheats on him, family does enough dowry, shows disrespect, goes out without permission, neglects children, cooks badly Index of women s empowerment/autonomy: women decides: on expenditure on own health care, purchase of major items, visit friends, spend her own money, needs permission to go to market, visit friends Son preference (next child) Fertility Currently pregnant Pregnant over time

14 Outcome variables Outcomes are Borda indexes from several questions Some component questions not significantly related to outcomes Approval index driven by jewellery question Jewellery question driven by TN and lacks external validity Autonomy index has duplication of visit dimension Respecify outcome indexes to exclude questionable questions Use scaling methods pca or mca

15 Table 3: Coefficient of Village has Cable for components of composite outcome variables representing Women s Status and Autonomy Dependent variable (attitudes to beating) Coefficient on village has cable Dependent variable (autonomy) Coefficient on village has cable (1) (2) (3) (4) (i) He suspects her of being unfaithful (0.016) (i) Own healthcare (0.023) (ii) Her natal family does not give money or jewellery *** (0.020) (ii) Purchase of major household items 0.080*** (0.023) (iii) She shows disrespect (0.023) (iii) Whether woman will visit or stay with family or friends (0.020) (iv) She leaves home without telling him (0.014) (iv) Whether woman has money to spend on her own 0.027** (0.013) (v) She neglects the children * (0.018) (v) Whether permission is required to go to market 0.064*** (0.013) (vi) She cooks badly ** (0.031) (vi) Whether permission is required to visit family or friends 0.040*** (0.014) Tolerance measure (mn_outcome 6 variables) ** (0.073) Adjusted tolerance measure (5 variables- excludes her * natal family does not give money or jewellery) (0.012) Autonomy measure (mn_real 6 variables) 0.026*** (0.006) Adjusted autonomy measure (5 variables excludes 0.015** (vi)) (0.007) Tolerance measure (PCA 6 variables) ** (0.067) Tolerance measure (MCA 6 variables) ** (0.041) Tolerance measure (PCA 5 variables 3 excludes her * natal family does not give money or jewellery) (0.0623) Tolerance measure (MCA 5 variables- excludes her natal family does not give money or jewellery) 4 Autonomy measure (PCA 6 variables) *** (0.038) Autonomy measure (MCA 6 variables) *** (0.028) Autonomy measure (PCA 5 variables) 3 - excludes (iii) 0.180*** excludes (vi) (0.0413)) 0.086** (0.0405) * (0.0396) Autonomy measure (MCA 5 variables) 4 excludes (iii) Excludes (vi) *** (0.028) (0.031) Notes: 1. * p<0.1, ** p<0.05, *** p< estimations replicates J&O Table IV Column (1) and (3) with exception of different dependent variable; estimations include controls as in J&O. These estimations employed the xtreg command in Stata on dichotomous variables. 3. Outcomes estimates by PCA: positive sign indicates increase in approval for beating 4. Ditto by MCA: a negative sign indicates an increase in approval for beating

16 Confounding by education, Christianity, Scheduled Castes, etc. years of education by access to cable TV proportion of Christians by access to cable TV has cable 2001 gets cable 2002 gets cable 2003 never has cable vhc mean years education 95% ci has cable 2001 gets cable 2002 gets cable 2003 never has cable vhc mean years education 95% ci

17 Tolerance of Spousal Beating by Cause, SARI data Problems with indexes Acceptability and experience of being beaten by husband (rural) Wife beating hp mn mz ap na Bihar Delhi Goa Haryana Tamil Nadu ka jm sk tn cheat money go out neglect bad cook ar ke gj or rj Tolerance of Spousal Beating by Cause (NFHS2) jh mg pj tr hr uc go up mp dl as wb Attitudes towards and experience of domestic violence do not correspond very well ch JO index is bihar driven new delhi by answer goa haryana to dowry tamil nadu question which may lack external validity cheat money go out neglect bad cook rural areas, weighted experience mean violence from husband Tolerance of Spousal Beating by Cause (NFHS3) north south west east northeast y1 Compared with NHFS 1998/9 survey responses source: authors' calculations from nfhs3 y axis is respondent approves beating for any reason v744a-e x axis is respondent experienced of any form of violence from husband d105a-j [bh] bihar [dl] delhi [go] goa [hr] haryana [tn] tamil nadu wife is unfaithful argues goes out neglects children burns food rural areas, weighted mean

18 Results with alternative indexes Beating drop dowry question Autonomy Reduce duplication Both reduce size and significance of results PCA and MCA indexes Coefficients have similar signs and significances, Size and significance of coefficients decline when suspect questions dropped. Conclusion Results are somewhat less convincing

19 Discussion of SARI results No theory of change By what route does watching Cable TV affect gender attitudes Those who have or watch TV? Biggest differences for those who do not have TVs but report watching. Much interesting information lost by using individual fixed effects i.e. effects of education, ethnicity, religion, age, occupation,.. Education & proportion of Christians electricity Conduct random effects model Inappropriate estimation method Endogenous nature of cable placement, TV watching, IV estimation multi-level construction of data. Multi-level estimation Lingering suspicion that results are driven by unobserved village characteristics Drop first year

20 does not watch, no cable does not watch, has cable Much higher tolerance for beating in villages with cable among those who have no TV, whether they watch TV or or not no TV has TV no TV has TV watches TV, no cable watches TV, has cable Decline in tolerance for beating among those who watch TV but do not own one, whether in villages with or without cable no TV has TV no TV has TV Graphs by R watches TV at least once/week and Village has cable TV

21 No TV Has TV Does not Watches SC/ST Non Below 35 & watch TV TV SC/ST 35 above Tolerance of spousal beatings Village has cable Village has cable X Female has no education Female autonomy Village has cable Village has cable X Female has no education Son preference Village has cable Village has cable X Female has no education -0.27** (0.130) 0.22* (0.134) N= ** (0.015) (0.0168) -0.17** (0.077) 0.13 (0.084) N= *** (0.098) 0.21 (0.167) N= *** (0.016) *** (0.023) (0.1053) (0.133) N= (0.165) (0.152) N= (0.05) (0.05) (0.20) (0.051) N= *** (0.100) 0.35* (0.182) N= *** (0.015) *** (0.022) (0.106) 0.25 (0.163) N= (0.32) (0.324) N= ** (0.018) (0.028) (0.054) (0.089) N= *** (0.086) 0.23** (0.105) N= *** (0.014) ** (0.017) ** (0.073) (0.091) N= *** (0.078) 0.23* (0.129) N= * (0.012) (0.0178) * (0.07) (0.08) N= ** (0.19) (0.20) N= *** (0.027) ** * (0.03) Small N [1] To check these results further we disaggregated into those who watch and do not watch TV: the groups are about equal in size: no significant coefficient for those watching TV while for women not watching TV, the interaction term of zero education and village has cable is positive, large and significant at the 5 % level.

22 Heterogeneity It seems to be women with education who benefit mainly Net effect of cable & cable * woman has no education People who watch TV are affected Women in households without TV also benefit, whether they have education or not Scheduled and backward castes less affected Sanscritisation?

23 Literature review and theory of change Results less strong, more nuanced, and not entirely supportive of main claims Need for theory (of change) How does TV affects attitudes? media effects studies Effects depend on messages & interpretation (encoder/decoder model)» Importance of actual programmes» Contexts of viewing & discussion of content» Presence of supportive (of pro-social messages) institutions and services Pro-social programming in India» Hum log and Raathi log Evaluations do not show obvious pro-social effects Other factors affecting attitudes and empowerment Education (content of) Employment Law Civil society action

24 Conclusions Initial intuitions of problems with study partially confirmed DISE graph contradicts expectations of falling enrolment with age re-estimated shows results based on programming error SARI findings of strong effects of cable TV contrast with structural view of women s disadvantage in South Asia Re-working shows results are fairly robust, but important heterogeneity missed (role of being educated), and methodological queries remain (RE and Mixed effects estimation) Replication suggests need for caution in accepting that cable TV will liberate women especially in view of continuing/intensifying gender disadvantage And further research