Essays on the role of religion, ethnicity, and gender
Date
2023
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
This dissertation consists of three independent essays on topics related to ethnic, religious and gender differences and their role in economic decision making. The first paper titled “Internal Migration and Right-Wing Vote Share” studies the within country movement of people from different communities and their impact on natives’ voting behavior. Using data from Indian elections to the State Legislative Assemblies, this paper studies the natives’ voting patterns in response to the movement of people from religious minorities and scheduled castes/tribes. In order to address the endogeneity of residential choices and to identify the causal impact of migrants on natives’ voting behavior, I have used instrumental variable approach based on shift-share instrument. The results suggest that migrants belonging to minority communities and scheduled castes/tribes contribute to increase in support for right-wing political parties. ☐ The second paper titled “Female Leaders and Gender Differences in Education and Health” studies the correlation between election of females and differences in investments on girls and boys, in education and health related outcomes. Using large representative data from India, I have found no evidence of the relationship between female politicians and reduction in gender gap in terms of household investment on education and health related outcomes. ☐ The third paper titled “Attitudes towards Life Satisfaction and Child Gender” studies the association between gender of newborn child on mothers’ attitude towards life satisfaction. The results suggest that the gender of the child and mother’s attitude towards life satisfaction are significantly related with each other, and the relationship between gender and life satisfaction is negative for girls and positive for boys.
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Keywords
Religious minorities, Ethnicity, Gender