Adolescent gender beliefs in India: Does mothers' empowerment matter?

Abstract

Abundant studies have documented the positive impact of mothers' empowerment on children's health and education in the Global South, but little is known about how maternal empowerment shapes children's gender beliefs. Using data from the India Human Development Survey, this study examines the relationship between mothers' empowerment and adolescent children's gender beliefs in India. Recognizing the multidimensionality of women's empowerment, we conduct latent class analysis to identify a six-class empowerment typology based on mothers' education, employment, decision-making power at home, mobility outside the home, and memberships in women's organizations. The results reveal unevenness in different dimensions of mothers' empowerment. Maternal empowerment's association with egalitarian gender beliefs is salient among adolescent girls, but not boys. Adolescent girls with mothers labeled as proactive workers in our empowerment typology hold the most egalitarian gender beliefs, whereas low agency and underprivileged worker mothers' daughters are the least egalitarian. By illustrating the complex interplay between multiple dimensions of maternal empowerment and children's gender beliefs in India, this study advances the empirical and theoretical understanding of women's empowerment and the effects of mothers' behaviors on children's gender beliefs.