Public Work Programs and Gender-based Violence: The Case of NREGA in India

NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) is the Indian government's flagship anti-poverty program and is one of the largest public works programmes in the world which aims to increase employment opportunities for the poor and in particular, improve women's access to the labour market. In this paper we analyse the relationship between female labour participation and violence against women. Using district-time variation in the implementation of this anti-poverty program we estimate the effect of improved participation and access to employment of women on gender-based violence. We find evidence that increased female labour participation following the NREGS increased total gender-based violence. There are increases in kidnapings, sexual harassment and domestic violence, while dowry deaths decreased.