Intergenerational Transmission of Gender Attitudes: Evidence from India

This paper examines the intergenerational transmission of gender attitudes in India, a setting where discrimination against women and girls is severe. We use survey data on gender attitudes (specifically, views about the appropriate roles and rights of women and girls) collected from adolescents attending 314 schools in the state of Haryana, and their parents. We find that when a parent holds a more discriminatory attitude, his or her child is about 15 to 20 percentage points more likely to hold the view. As a benchmark, classmates' average gender attitudes have a similar effect size. We find that mothers influence children's gender attitudes more than fathers do. Parental attitudes also affect their children's aspirations; girls with more discriminatory parents are less likely to want to continue their schooling beyond high school.