August 16, 2007
Cable television is good for women in India
An interesting post on LunchoverIP on how the introduction of cable television improved gender attitudes in rural India.
"... In a recent draft paper that Emily Oster wrote with Robert Jensen of Brown University after a three-years study, Oster argues that "the introduction of cable television is associated with improvements in women's status" and finds "significant increases in reported autonomy, decreases in the reported acceptability of beating and decreases in reported son preferences", this last point being about sex-selective abortions (rural families prefer boys). They also found "increases in female school enrollment and decreases in fertility (primarily via increased birth spacing)."
The effects are large, the two researchers argue, "equivalent in some cases to about five years of education" within the surveyed population.
These changes are "accomplished despite there being little or no direct targeted appeals" such as public-service announcements. Which brings Oster and Jensen to speculate that "it may be that cable television, with programming that features lifestyle in both urban areas and in other countries, is an effective form of persuasion because people emulate what they perceive to be desirable behavior and attitudes".
Photo courtesy of JICA.
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