Does Education Empower Women? Evidence from Indonesia
利用印度尼西亚1978年延长学年的政策变化，发现教育减少了生育数量、增加了避孕使用和生殖健康实践，但在家庭决策权、资产所有权和社区参与方面影响有限。
This paper examines whether education empowers women. We exploit an exogenous variation in education induced by a longer school year in Indonesia in 1978, which fits a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. We find education reduces the number of live births, increases contraceptive use, and promotes reproductive health practices. However, except for a few outcome measures, we do not find evidence that education improves women’s decision-making authority within households, asset ownership, or community participation. These results suggest that, to some extent, education does empower women in middle-income countries like Indonesia.