Women’s Inheritance Rights and Child Health Outcomes in India
利用印度2005年《印度教继承法修正案》的逐步实施，采用双重差分法研究发现，改善女性继承权能降低儿童营养不良概率，机制包括提高女性教育水平、改善婚姻结果和家庭内部议价能力。
Does a legal change in women’s inheritance rights have long-term effects on child health outcomes? This paper examines the effect of an improvement in women’s inheritance rights on child nutritional health outcomes in India using a difference-in-differences estimation approach. We use the staggered implementation of the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 to investigate the impact of the reform on anthropometric indictors of child health: being underweight, stunted, and wasted. The findings of this study reveal that an improvement in women’s inheritance rights has a positive impact on children’s health and reduces the probability of nutritional deficiency in the child. We identify mechanisms such as increased educational levels, better marital outcomes, and improved intrahousehold bargaining power of women as potential pathways through which inheritance rights affect child nutritional health outcomes. The results of the paper lend credence to growing evidence that legal recognition of women’s inheritance rights can have sustained and second-generation effects, in spite of poor enforcement mechanisms and persistence of deep-rooted societal bias against women holding property.