Empowering Rural Women through MGNREGA

Key Points

India is an outlier among nations at a similar level of development with its low rate of women in the workforce – an impediment to economic growth, not to mention women’s autonomy.

• Traditional beliefs about gender roles limit women from working – but it is unclear how such norms function or how they can be changed.
• A policy that increased women’s control of their own wages in the government’s workfare program, MGNREGS, led them to work more, both in workfare and – surprisingly – private employment. Compared to women who just received bank accounts, those who additionally received direct deposit and training in account use earned 24% more in private sector employment annually.
• Women who received MGNREGS direct deposit and training were more likely to have a positive view of women and work. They reported in surveys that a working woman made a better wife, and the working woman’s husband a better husband and provider.
• Their perceptions of the views of other people in their community also changed: the women were less likely to say women bore social costs if they worked outside the home.

Click here to view the full pdf version of the policy brief here.