Transportation, employment and gender norms: Evidence from Indian cities

While India’s low female labor force participation in urban areas is often attributed to its demographic and labor market characteristics, education, and cultural aspects, attention is not paid to the labor market opportunity structure limiting women’s labor market participation. We examine the role of transport infrastructure in gender-gap in labor force participation and its variations by gender-norms across communities. Using India Human Development Survey and city-level data on transport infrastructure, the causal effects of differential employment status of women and men are related to size and quality of transport in twelve Indian cities. Interaction effects are explored to understand varying impacts of transport on employment by gender-context in communities. We find that an improvement in the size and quality of transportation infrastructure improves women’s labor market participation more than that of men. In gender egalitarian communities, stronger positive effect of transport on female labor and reduction of gender gap in employment. Along with generation of new job opportunities suitable for women, it is important to encourage a gender-friendly institutional and social fabric to allow women to connect to new jobs. Using a novel data, the paper highlights the importance of ostensibly gender-neutral development policies for shaping gender inequalities in outcomes.