Gender Discrimination in Economic Decision-making: Behavioral Evidence from India

Discriminatory beliefs and practices against women within households and local communities are usually cited as a prominent reason for high levels of gender inequality prevalent in contemporary Indian society. While the presence and implications of discrimination against women and other minority groups in India has been extensively documented in the social science literature, there is a paucity of experimental evidence from the field. Within development economics, gender inequality is considered to be a barrier for economic development but to the best of my knowledge, there is a lack of field research on analyzing the behavioral patterns of discriminatory behavior against women. This experimental study is setup with the following objectives:
1) use lab-in-the-field games to identify the presence of discriminatory beliefs towards female participants
2) analyze which economic models of discrimination predict observed patterns of gender discrimination (taste-based versus statistical discrimination models)
3) test the impact of a cognitive nudge which involves varying the evaluation settings on participants’ decision-making
4) analyze the relationship between lab measures of discrimination and participants’ real-life experiences with intra-household gender inequality
To achieve these objectives, I will use two prominent behavioral games, including the standard trust and dictator games, in a within-subjects experimental design which enables the identification of discriminatory beliefs at the individual level. This design also allows for between-subjects analysis comparing differential behavior of women and men towards each other. The lab experiment will be followed by a short-survey designed to record the participants’ demographic and socio-economic characteristics, as well as the existing level of gender inequality within their households.