Saggi sull'occupazione femminile e lo sviluppo del capitale umano in India

This thesis consists of three empirical essays analyzing socio-economic issues of policy relevance in the Indian context. Chapter 1 examines the role of the Indian caste system and perceived social discrimination in human capital formation over time. It investigates the evolution of gaps across social groups in India in children’s cognitive outcomes and parental investment in children’s education from age 5 to age 15 and studies how perceived social discrimination contributes to these observed gaps. Chapter 2 estimates the causal effect of having young children aged 0 to 5 years on mothers’ labour force participation in rural India. It exploits Indian families’ son-preferring fertility stopping behaviour to address the potential endogeneity in the fertility decision. Chapter 3 investigates the impact of prenatal sex diagnostic technology (PSDT), which was introduced in India in the post-economic liberalization period of the 1980s, on mothers’ labour supply using a triple-differences estimator. It further investigates various underlying channels linking prenatal sex selection and mothers’ labour supply.