Investigators: Soledad Prillaman & Somer Bryant

Location: India & U.S.A.

Status: Data collection & analysis

Abstract

How might households shape women’s political interest, engagement, and behavior in India? We know that, for many in rural India, the household is the fundamental unit of political organization. Household political coordination has been observed in voting behavior of household members as well as the correlation of intra-household bargaining power with non-electoral forms of political participation (Prillaman 2023). Where political behavior is coordinated at the household-level, the distribution of power and autonomy within the household may be a critical determinant of political engagement levels. Constraints to women’s mobility, for example, may limit their social and political networks from extending beyond the household. The concentration of women’s ties in the household, in turn, disadvantage women and enable their domination by better connected and better resourced men in their household. Disparities in network relations lead to both inequalities in information and access to power. How can we model the relationship between women’s intra-household agency and their political engagement? Our research team seeks to develop original metrics to assess the concept of “political agency” - an individual’s capacity to engage in politics through a cross-regional data collection effort. In the winter of 2024, the ID2 Lab will launch a phone survey data collection exercise across all 28 Indian states to assess the relationship between intra-household bargaining power and autonomy and women’s political engagement levels. In addition to this large-scale quantitative data collection exercise, the ID2 Lab intends to expand the scope of this project to understand political agency levels in the U.S.