Gender Inequality in Land Ownership in India: Evidence from National Sample Survey
利用全国调查数据，研究印度男女在农业和非农业土地所有权上的不平等程度，并评估继承法改革对女性土地所有权的积极影响。
Gender inequality in land ownership remains a significant barrier to women’s economic empowerment and social equity in India. Addressing this disparity is crucial for advancing gender equality and improving household welfare. Using measures of inequality developed by Agarwal et al. (2021), this study examines various dimensions of women’s land ownership in India. The study utilises nationally and state-level representative data from the All-India Debt and Investment Survey to assess the extent of inequality in agricultural and non-agricultural land ownership between men and women across rural and urban areas. Additionally, it leverages temporal variations in amendments to inheritance laws across Indian states to evaluate the impact of longer exposure to progressive inheritance reforms on women’s land ownership, employing a propensity score matching approach. The findings reveal that women’s land ownership remains significantly lower than men’s, with only 11 per cent of rural women and 15 per cent of urban women owning any land (either individually or jointly), compared to 53 per cent of rural men and 49 per cent of urban men. The propensity score matching results show that longer exposure to inheritance reforms positively affects the likelihood of women owning land.