Archives: Publication

Network Externalities, Strategic Delegation and Optimal Trade Policy

This paper examines strategic trade policy for differentiated network-goods oligopolies under alternative scenarios when there is export-rivalry between two countries. We demonstrate that, in the absence of managerial delegation, the optimal trade policy entails an export tax (subsidy) if network externalities are weak (strong). However, when price competition is combined with managerial delegation, the opposite is true. Subsidizing exports, on the other hand, is always optimal under quantity competition. We also show that the welfare consequences of strategic trade policy depend not only on the mode of product market competition, but also on firms’ internal organizations and the strength of network externalities.

GenderTalk: Gender and Internal Migration

NCAER National Data Innovation Centre
Measurement Brief | 2024-01

Welcome to the fourth issue of GenderTalk from the NCAER-National Data Innovation Centre’s Gender Hub. In this issue of GenderTalk, we focus on the gender implications of internal migration in India. The drivers of women’s migration are complex and can include economic and educational opportunities, cultural practices surrounding family structure and marriage, desire for exploration of new built and social environments, a combination of these reasons, and many more.

GenderTalk is a space where scholars, policymakers, and civil society members can engage with each other on a theme vital to women’s well-being in India. For previous issues, scroll to the bottom.

In particular, this brief discusses the following:

1. Women’s internal migration in India: Data gaps and needs – In the introductory article, Reshma Roshania (NCAER) demonstrates how gaps in data on internal migration disproportionately invisibilize women migrants, especially circular migrants in rural destination spaces….more

 

 

2. Women’s labour migration: Systems, practices and agency – Neetha N. (Centre for Women’s Development Studies) highlights the gendered structure of labour migration, from the nature of work, to recruitment practices, to payment systems….more

 

 

3. Female migrants from North-East India in Delhi’s service industry – Drawing on primary data, Priyakshi Baruah (Jamia Millia Islamia) unpacks growing female migration from North-Eastern states to Delhi, finding that exoticism drives service industry recruitment, while discrimination stifles work opportunities in other sectors..…more

 

 

4. Intermittent migration: Female agency within marriage and beyond  – Employing oral history research methods, Priti Ramamurthy (University of Washington) finds that women intermittently migrate as a strategy to escape poor treatment in their marital households, and to pursue social relationships…..more

 

 

5. Role of Marriage Migration in Determining Women’s Autonomy in the Indian Context  Using IHDS 2011-12 data, Esha Chatterjee (IIT Kanpur) explores the nuances of marriage migration, finding that women’s autonomy after marriage varies by kinship patterns and physical communities….more

 

 

6. Conversation with Manju Rajput The Conversation with Manju Rajput showcases Aajeevika Bureau’s work mobilizing women with migrant husbands who remain in source villages, migrant women, and adolescent girls to access their entitlements and exercise their voice…more

 

 

READS…from around the web

Bhagat, R. B. (2017). Migration, gender and right to the city: the Indian context. Economic and Political Weekly, 35-40.
https://www.epw.in/journal/2017/32/perspectives/migration-gender-and-right-city.html

Desai, S., & Banerji, M. (2008). Negotiated identities: Male migration and left-behind wives in India. Journal of Population Research,25, 337-355. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF03033894

Mazumdar, I., Neetha, N., & Agnihotri, I. (2013). Migration and gender in India. Economic and Political Weekly, 54-64.https://www.epw.in/journal/2013/10/special-articles/migration-and-gender-india.html

Shah, A. (2006). The labour of love: Seasonal migration from Jharkhand to the brick kilns of other states in India. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 40(1), 91-z18. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/006996670504000104 

Singh, C. (2019). Migration as a driver of changing household structures: Implications for local livelihoods and adaptation.Migration and Development, 8(3), 301-319. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21632324.2019.1589073 

Wadhawan, N. (2013). Living in domesti-city: Women andmigration for domestic work from Jharkhand. Economic andPolitical Weekly, 47-54. https://www.epw.in/journal/2013/43/review-womens-studies-review-issues/living-domesti-city.html

Click here to download the current measurement brief

This measurement brief is part of the Gender Hub led by Dr. Pallavi Choudhuri and Dr. Sonalde Desai. The Gender Hub initiative is a part of the National Data Innovation Centre at the National Council of Applied Economic Research. GenderTalk, is a space where scholars, policymakers, and civil society members can engage with each other on a theme vital to women’s well-being in India. Our website can be found at https://ndic.ncaer.org/research-theme/gender-data-hub/.

Previous Issues of GenderTalk:

2023-03: Women’s Agency in Marriage Choice;

2023-02: Gender and Land Rights;

2023-01: Gender and Public Safety

Time use patterns and household adversities: A lens to understand the construction of gender privilege among children and adolescents in India

We investigate gender differences in time-use patterns in 1891 children and assess how time is reallocated in response to challenges faced by households in India. We use adaptations made within a household during adversities to understand how gender inequality in time use is produced and reinforced. Using three waves of the Young Lives Panel Survey (2009, 2013, and 2016), we find that boys spend significantly more time on school and leisure than girls. Girls spend more time on household chores, care work, and studying at home than boys while spending fewer hours on school and leisure. Girls perform paid work during household adversities besides carrying out additional care work and household chores. Boys are more likely to engage in unpaid work than girls but are similarly affected in other domains. However, their time for education and leisure is often protected. Thus, girls labor more than boys daily and respond in equal measure during adversities, demonstrating that gender inequality in time use emerges at an early age.

Gender and Generation: Landownership and Older Indians’ Autonomy

While increased access to household assets has been shown to improve older individuals’ autonomy and bargaining power at home, the role of gender hierarchy in shaping differential impacts of household assets has received far less attention. This article explores the gender asymmetry in the association of older people’s (age 60 years or more) decision-making power at home and survival probability with their ownership of and managerial control over agricultural land in rural India. Using data from the India Human Development Survey, results find that in multi-generational households, landownership at the household level is associated with higher decision-making power and survival probability for older men but not for older women. Among older women, the relationship between household landownership and decision-making power is positive when they have clearly established titles to the land or managerial control but negative when their names are not on the land title.