Satellite TV Spurs Rural Indian Women to Resist Subjugation

A new study shows that satellite delivered television programming in rural India is helping to improve women's lives. How? By providing them with information via TV programming on a better way of life than the ones they traditionally live. What lessons can we draw here? First, the power of information to change culture. For a long time we've thought that TV and movies create negative examples. Here's evidence that the images can be positive as well. Second, if we really want to change things in the Middle East and other areas that prove stubborn to reform, perhaps we should support more programming along the lines of Radio Free Europe. Third, while web heads continue to be excited about the power of text, this shows that traditionally programming, albeit delivered through new mediums, might work better. I realize none of this is particularly new... but it's good to be reminded once and a while.

Here's an abstract: Cable and satellite television have grown rapidly throughout the developing world. The availability of cable and satellite television exposes viewers to new information about the outside world, which may affect individual attitudes and behaviors. This paper explores the effect of the introduction of cable television on gender attitudes in rural India. Using a three-year individual-level panel dataset, we find that the introduction of cable television is associated with improvements in women's status. We find significant increases in reported autonomy, decreases in the reported acceptability of beating and decreases in reported son preference. We also find increases in female school enrollment and decreases in fertility (primarily via increased birth spacing). The effects are large, equivalent in some cases to about five years of education in the cross section, and move gender attitudes of individuals in rural areas much closer to those in urban areas. We argue that the results are not driven by pre-existing differential trends. These results have important policy implications, as India and other countries attempt to decrease bias against women.

Report here: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w13305