Supply Side School Interventions for Girls in India, Effectiveness and Labour Market Outcomes Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Abstract

In this paper we analyse the joint impact of two supply side school interventions (NPEGEL & KGBV) in India, aimed at improving girls schooling outcomes at the elementary level, on the probability of primary and upper primary completion and on changes to the reported usual principal status with regard to attending educational institution for girls in rural areas. We exploit the regional variation with regard to programme implementation in order to estimate the causal impact of the treatment using a triple difference in difference and difference in difference methodology. Our results suggests that exposure to both the programmes is associated with an increase in the probability of primary as well as upper primary completion and attending educational institution. Additionally, we examine the impact of this increase in participation in schooling by girls in 6-14 age group on labour force participation for rural (uneducated) women in the age group 25 to 59 years on account of within household substitution with regard to responsibility of performing domestic tasks. The recent fall in rural female labour force participation, despite the economic growth, in India have found little consensus on the explanations for the same in the literature. Using programme exposure as an instrumental variable we find a negative effect of a greater participation in school by girls on labour force participation for women, while a positive effect on participation in domestic tasks for the same. Compared to the descriptive explanations presented in the past literature our result on the other hand focuses on causal mechanism instead.