A new study cites TV programs as liberating for housewives
In rural India, television is becoming more and more common and TV's are found in more households than ever before. A new study conducted by by Robert Jensen of Brown University and Emily Oster of the University of Chicago delved into the growth of television in rural India and the percentage of women whose opinions became more empowered after watching it.
Tradition
A woman's place in the Indian culture doesn't often leave her with the freedom to make her own choices. Many cannot go out shopping or visit friends without permission from their husbands. 62% of women believe that spousal beating is acceptable and the majority of husbands agree.
Acceptable reasons for physical abuse are for a meal not being cooked well, if she neglected the children, if she was disrespectful and if she went out without permission.
Infiltration of the Tube
The last 10 years have seen television programming reach rural villages in India. The commercial programming mostly contains game shows and Indian soap operas. For women in the villages, this has usually been the first time they've seen females with lives outside of the home.
Roles on television show their peers with jobs, dating multiple men, wearing fashionable and sexy clothing and being financially independent. For someone who only knows the customs of her culture, this must be quite shocking.
The Study
The research was taken in Indian villages in four states (Bihar, Goa, Haryana, and Tamil Nadu) and the capital, Delhi, during 2001 to 2003. It included 2,700 households in 180 villages.
- 65 villages already had cable in 2001
- by 2003, 21 more had access
- 80% of people watched weekly television after cable had been hooked up
Criteria
Autonomy: whether females have a choice to make their own decisions regarding friends, going out, shopping and health
Spousal Abuse: whether the wives believe that beating is acceptable
Male Children: whether women prefer to have male children rather than female
The Results
In areas where the villages already had cable, views of women stayed relatively the same. But in villages where cable was introduced, women's thoughts about themselves and their role changed quite dramatically.
For these villages, women's autonomy rose as if they had been educated for 5.5 years; their acceptance of spousal abuse fell by 10%; their hope for a male child instead of a girl dropped by 12 percent.
Outcome
The research studied women's attitude rather than their action, so it has yet to been seen what lasting effect TV will have on tradition. It was noted that after cable, girls between 6 and 10 years old were 10% more likely to go to school.
Also, for women who were under 35 years old, birth rates fell by half in a given year. Television certainly isn't going to change hundreds of years of customs by itself but it is interesting that it has played such a large role in modern rural India.
Information taken from Robert Jensen and Emily Oster's study, The Power of TV: Cable Television and Women's Status in India, published in the National Bureau of Economic Research.
