The document evaluates the impact of attitudes towards women's work on economic behavior across rural India and Bangladesh, revealing that egalitarian views positively influence labor supply while traditional views hinder economic growth. It also highlights issues of coercion and harassment faced by women in the labor market. The findings aim to inform interventions and raise awareness about gender norms and women's welfare.

1. Work of Women and Social Norms
About Gender Roles
in India and Bangladesh
Wendy Olsen, Amaresh Dubey, Maheen
Sultan, Sohela Nazneen, Sadia Mustafa,
and Shahida Khondaker, with teams in 3
countries
2018
1
Acknowledgements: Thank you to Professor Kunal Sen, Prof. Balwinder Singh of the
University of Punjab at Patiala, Indian Society for Labour Economics (ISLE) conference,
colleagues at the Institute for Social Studies, The Hague (Univ of Rotterdam), and the
Foundation for Agrarian Studies, for comments.
We acknowledge funding from ESRC DFID 2014-2017. The co-investigator Prof. Simeen
Mahmud was our respected leader during this project.

2. Acknowledgements: We gratefully thank the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)and UK
Department for International Development (DFID) for a grant under the Poverty Alleviation
theme, Gender Norms, Labour Supply and Poverty Reduction in
Comparative Context: Evidence from Rural India and
Bangladesh”, 2014-7, ES/L005646/1. We also thank the British Academy for its grant,
under International Mobility Partnership funds, to work on an innovative mixed-methods
research network 2014-7.
Paper and Poster Authors Include:
Wendy Olsen1, Amaresh Dubey2, Nik Loynes3, Anup K Mishra4, Daniel Neff5, Santosh K Singh6,
Samantha Watson7, Min Zhang8, Maheen Sultan9, Sohela Nazneen (IDS Sussex), Sadia
Mustafa9, and Shahida Khondaker9.
Author for contacts wendy.olsen@manchester.ac.uk, Room G20, Humanities Building, Social Statistics, University of
Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL
4 papers submitted to journals so far.
1 Professor of Socio Economics, University of Manchester, U.K.
2 Professor of Economics, Centre for the study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
3 Research Associate and PhD Student, Department of Politics and Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research, University of
Manchester, UK.
4 Assistant Professor in Economics, DAV PG College, BHU, Varanasi, U.P., India and Adjunct Professor, Indian Institute for
Dalit Studies, Delhi
5 Research Fellow, GIGA Institute of Asian Studies, Hamburg
6 Post Doctoral Fellow, CSRD, JNU, New Delhi, India
7 Assistant Professor, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
8 Research Associate, Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research, University of Manchester, UK
9 BRAC University, BIGD.
2

3. Research Question and Findings
• How do attitudes about women’s work matter to
economic behaviour?
– The more egalitarian attitudes among 20% of rural
residents in low income areas actually affect labour
supply UPWARD.
– So having traditional views of housewifery is not helpful
to the gross domestic product.
• BUT: Evidence in rural north central India and rural
Bangladesh shows that women are coerced into
working, through poverty.
• Some are also harassed while working outside
-- evidence from interviews.
3

4. Impacts
• We raised concern about Attitudes About
Women Working with 35 students and research
assistants.
• We influenced specialists invited from local universities
who heard about mixed methods, labour supply models,
gender and egalitarian values in 4 cities, Bonn, Dhaka,
BHU Varanasi, and Delhi.
• Conceptual impact by suggesting decomposition over
time (paper published in IJLE 2017) and SEM.
• Capacity building in 3 summer schools and 4 one-day workshops
• We have influential interpretations to come yet.
4

5. Upcoming Influences
• We are interpreting women’s wellbeing with 2
‘Red Zones’: NO WORK and HARMFUL WORK
including OVERWORK.
• We are doing time-use data analysis prior to
all-India Time-use analysis, showing male
engagement in household tasks.
• (PROGRESSIVE AGENDA FOR GENDER)
• Submitting full mixed data to data archive
5

6. The circles in the far
north and south of
Bangladesh show our
villages.
6

7. The Indian Region Chosen for Secondary Research
Overlaps with Our Primary Household Survey Regions
From 26 States of
India, we chose 5
in NORTH
CENTRAL INDIA.
Uttar Pradesh
including
Uttarkhand,
Madhya Pradesh,
Chattisgarh, Bihar,
and Jharkhand.
4 Upazillas in
Bangladesh
*
7

8. Glimpse of our Primary 3-state data
• 15 villages in north central India and 9 villages
in far south and far north of Bangladesh
8

9. General Situation:
Female Market Work is Invisibilised
Rural Bangladesh
Principal Occupation
• 98% housewife 414/423
Time-Use Diary (Rural)
• 88% worked on market
work using ‘medium’
definition [standard def’n]
Rural North Central India
Principal Occupation
• 88% housewife 444/504
Time-Use Diary (Rural)
• 49% worked on market
work using ‘medium’
definition [standard def’n]
9

10. Results 1. An Index of Autonomy of
Women in Several Decisions, India &
Bangladesh, NFHS & DHS
India & Bangladesh, MPLUS Categorical declaration,
includes 2* 4-category Likert Scales and 3 binary X’s
10
0
.5
1
1.5
2
Density
-2 -1 0 1 2
F1cat
Women's Attitudes to Women's Decisions- Pooled 2005 and 2007
• The index of autonomy has
high values for ‘egalitarian’
women and low values for
very traditional women.

11. 11
-.1
0
.1.2.3
M
adhya
PradeshUtterPradesh
Jharkhand
BiharChhattisgarh
Sylhet
Barisal
Khulna
Chittagon
Dhaka
Rajshahi
Bangladesh India
Confidence
Interval
Source: DHS 2007 Bangladesh and NFHS 2005 India
Female Attitudes to Decisions
in Bangladesh and India, by Region