The Impact of Reservation in the Panchayati Raj - Innovations for ...

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Himachal Pradesh) now have laws mandating a two-child norm for members of the Panchayat. Aswe can see in Table 6, women and men Pradhans have the same number of children on average(around 2.5 in West Bengal). Since women do not necessarily control their fertility choices, andare unlikely to find it worthwhile to fight their family in order to be eligible for the Panchayat,this policy is likely to discourage women, or members of the SCs and STs, from being candidates,even when there is reservation, thus encouraging the situations that critics of the reservation policydescribe, where “puppet candidates” will take the place of real candidates. De facto, it will thusreduce women’s agency and, if anything, may result in an increase in fertility, rather than theopposite. 16This would be an unfortunate outcome, given the evidence that Panchayat leaders make adifference and that bringing women and SCs into politics may help in improving their welfare.Reduced fertility may be achieved by increasing women’s bargaining power in the family, and aneffective democracy with adequate women’s representation may be more effective at achieving itthan regulation that takes away from women and SCs what the 73rd Amendment guarantees them.ReferencesBesley, Timothy, Rohini Pande Lupin Rahman, and Vijayendra Rao (2003) ‘The politics of publicgoods provision: Evidence from Indian local government.’ Mimeo, LSE, forthcoming in Journalof the European Economic AssociationChattopadhyay, Raghabendra, and Esther Duflo (2003a) ‘Efficiency and rent seeking in local governments:Evidence from randomized policy experiments in India.’ Mimeo, MIT(2003b) ‘Women as policy makers: Evidence from a randomized policy experiment in India.’Mimeo, MIT; forthcoming in EconometricaGhatak, Maitreya, and Maitreesh Ghatak (1999) ‘Grassroots democracy: A study of the panchayatsystem in West Bengal.’ Mimeo, Development Research Group Calcutta and University ofChicagoGovernment of West Bengal (1998) The West Bengal Panchayat (Constitution) Rules, 1975 Departmentof Panchayats & Rural DevlelopmentKanango, Sukla Deb (1998) ‘Panchayati raj and emerging women leadership: An overview.’ In People’sPower and Panchayati Raj: Theory and Practice, ed. Bansaku (Indian Social Institute)chapter 5, pp. 77—95Norris, Pippa (2001) ‘Breaking the barriers: Positive discrimination policies for women.’ In HasLiberalism Failed Women: Parity, Quotas and Political Representation, ed. Jyette Klausenand Charles Maier (St Martins Press) chapter 1016 There is considerable evidence that higher bargaining power leads to a reduction in women’s fertility.12
Pande, Rohini (2003) ‘Can mandated political representation increase policy influence for disadvantagedminorities? theory and evidence from India.’ American Economic Review 93(4), 1132—1151Probe Team (1999) ‘The school environment.’ In ‘Public Report on Basic Education in India’(Delhi: Oxford University Press) chapter 4Sen, Amartya (1999) Development as Freedom, 1 ed. (Random House)Topalova, Petia (2003) ‘Women are changing governance in India? The impact of female leadershipon household satisfaction, quality of public goods and governance.’ Mimeo, MITWorld Bank (2001) Engendering Development: Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, andVoice (OxfordUniversityPressandWorldBank)13
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Page 7 and 8: sample. 11 Udaipur is a much poorer
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