Nidhiya Menon

• Ph.D.
• Professor at Brandeis University

Gender differences in the agricultural sector of many Asian countries are quite pronounced, not only in terms of unpaid work burdens but also in the types of employment in which people engage. This chapter explores the evidence on these gender differences, specifically focusing on gendered labor access and opportunities in the agricultural sectors...

Gender differences in the agricultural sector of many Asian countries are quite pronounced, not only in terms of unpaid work burdens but also in the types of employment in which people engage. This chapter explores the evidence on these gender differences, specifically focusing on gendered labor access and opportunities in the agricultural sectors...

This data archive consists of a digitized database of all of India's daily minimum wages across states and detailed industries for the years 1983, 1985/86, 1993, 1998, 2004, and 2006. These data are otherwise only available on paper and/or pdf documents. The data are provided as Excel and Stata files, including aggregate codes by broad industry gro...

We evaluate the impact of oral polio vaccines on the incidence of all disabilities (locomotor, hearing, visual, speech, and mental) in India, focusing on polio-related disability, which constitutes the largest fraction of locomotor disabilities. Polio was hyperendemic in India even as recently as the early 1990s, but the country was declared wild p...

We study the impact of proximity to mineral deposits and active mines on women's agency in India. Identification leverages the plausibly exogenous spatial variation in the occurrence of mineral deposits and mineral types across districts. Results indicate that women's outcomes improve near mines: women have less tolerance of physical violence and t...

In general, women's wage work in the market economy may be characterized as relatively insecure, low-paid, unskilled, and gender-segregated. Gender differences become more pronounced when considering the realm of the agricultural marketplace, specifically in unpaid reproductive/care work in rural areas and non-remunerative productive work on the fa...

In general, women’s wage work in the market economy may be characterized as relatively insecure, low-paid, unskilled, and gender-segregated. Gender differences become more pronounced when considering the realm of the agricultural marketplace, specifically in unpaid reproductive/care work in rural areas and non-remunerative productive work on the fa...

We examine the impact of pollution from coal–fired power units on the anaemic status of children and women in India. The number of coal units in the district at the time of birth significantly increases the incidence of anaemia in young children as does in utero exposure. The number of coal units in the district also adversely affects the anaemic s...

This paper explores the association between income and stated views on minimum living standards; that is, views on items and activities that no one in today's society should have to go without. Using data from a large nationally representative survey, we find the rich deem fewer items to be essential. In our baseline model, people at the bottom of...

We study the lasting repercussions of the 1918 influenza (‘Spanish Flu’) pandemic on health measures and literacy rates in São Paulo, Brazil, the most populous city in South America today, but significantly poorer a century ago. Leveraging temporal and spatial variation in district‐level estimates of influenza‐related deaths for the 1917–20 time pe...

This paper studies the impact of climate change on the nutritional status of very young children between the ages of 0–3 years by using weather data from the last half century merged with rich information on child, mother, and household characteristics in rural coastal Bangladesh. We evaluate the health consequences of rising temperature and relati...

Relatively few studies have examined the ‘echo effect’ of health shocks related to prenatal and early-life malnutrition, that is, whether the legacy of such shocks is transmitted to the next generation. This study addresses this gap by leveraging extreme malnutrition during the Great Leap Forward famine in China, and by examining its intergeneratio...

The channels between gender equality and international trade are complex; there could be both reverse causality and adverse consequences. For example, export-oriented growth in many countries has brought new employment opportunities for women who previously were involved in very low paying or even unpaid work, often on the farm or in small-scale se...

This paper studies BMI as a correlate of the early spatial distribution and intensity of Covid-19 across the districts of India and finds that conditional on a range of individual, household and regional characteristics, adult BMI significantly predicts the likelihood that the district is a hotspot, the natural log of the confirmed number of cases,...

This paper studies child health focusing on differences in anthropometric outcomes between Christians and non-Christians in India. The non-Christian group includes Hindus and Muslims. Estimates indicate that young Christian children (ages 0–59 months) are less likely to be stunted as compared to similar aged children of Hindu and Muslim identities....

This study on the economics of gender differences examines whether the mining industry acts as a blessing or curse for women’s well-being and economic status. The analysis focuses on the impact of proximity to mineral deposits and active mines on various measures of women’s agency and health in India. Identification leverages the plausibly exogenou...

This paper examines the patterns and correlates of excess weight among urban adults in different parts of India. Incidence of excess weight is most prevalent in the North-Western and the Southern States of the country, and among women than men in urban India. Association of weight with expenditure is mostly positive across the different parts of th...

Galvanized by rapid income growth, labor market transitions in the nature of jobs, and lifestyle factors, there has been an increase in rates of obesity in many developing countries. This paper examines the relationship between BMI and sector and physical intensity of work among urban adults in India. We document that BMI is positively and signific...

We analyse patterns and correlates of excess weight of adults in India. We find that urban women are particularly at risk of being overweight or obese and that income or wealth, relative inequality, and lifestyle choices are strongly correlated with body mass index. Using panel data for women, we find that there is strong persistence in being overw...

This paper proposes an instrumental variable method for programme evaluation that only requires a single cross‐section of data on the spatial intensity of programmes and outcomes. The instruments are derived from a simple theoretical model of government decision‐making in which governments are responsive to the attributes of places, rather than to...

This chapter focuses on the structural drivers and constraints associated with the transition of women from unremunerated or low-paid production to higher-value work in three important labor market domains: entrepreneurship, agriculture, and wage employment. Understanding the drivers behind these types of employment and the constraints that women f...

This study examines how changes in the minimum wage affect child labor in India. The analysis uses repeated cross sections of India's NSSO employment data from 1983 to 2008 merged with data on state-level minimum wage rates. Theoretically, the impact of the minimum wage on child work could go either way, so empirical evidence from a country with hi...

This paper focuses on the structural drivers and constraints associated with the transition of women from unremunerated or low-paid production to higher-value work in three important labor-market domains: entrepreneurship, agriculture, and wage employment. Understanding the drivers behind these types of employment and the constraints that women fac...

Vietnam's 1993 Land Law created a land market by granting households tradable land-use rights. This study uses mixed methods to analyze whether increased land titling led to improvements in household economic security and whether land titles in women's and men's names had different effects. Using a matched sample of households from Vietnam's 2004 a...

This study examines howemployment andwages for men andwomen respond to changes in the minimum wage in India, a country known for its extensive system of minimum wage regulations across states and industries. Using repeated cross sections of India’s National Sample Survey Organization employment survey data for the period 1983–2008 merged with a new...

This paper considers gendered labor access and opportunities in the domains of the rural landscape and agricultural market place of developing countries. By rural landscape we mean women’s time use in non-remunerative activities like fuel and water collection, reproductive care and domestic work, and uncompensated agricultural labor in rural region...

This study uses household survey data from five developing Asian economies to explore gender differences in employment, wages, educational attainment, and occupational distributions. These five economies-India, Indonesia, Philippines, Taipei,China, and Viet Nam-span a range of per capita GDP levels and have demonstrated varying success rates in clo...

This article studies early childhood health in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal, focusing on inequalities in anthropometric outcomes by religious adherence. India and Nepal have Hindu majorities, while Bangladesh is predominantly Muslim. The results suggest that Muslim infants have an advantage over Hindu infants in height-for-age in India (for boys an...

This article examines how Nepal's 1996-2006 civil conflict affected women's decisions to engage in employment. Using three waves of the Nepal Demographic and Health Survey, we employ a difference-indifference approach to identify the impact of war on women's employment decisions. Results indicate that women's likelihood of employment increased as a...

Among countries with comparable levels of income, India has one of the more progressive disability policy frameworks. However, people with disabilities in India are still subject to multiple disadvantages. This paper focuses on state-level variations in outcomes for people with disabilities to provide an explanation for the contrast between the lib...

Vietnam’s 1993 Land Law created a land market by granting households land-use rights which could be exchanged, leased, and mortgaged. Using a matched household sample from Vietnam’s 2004 and 2008 Household Living Standards Survey, this study analyzes whether land titling for women led to improvements in child health and education. Results indicate...

Firm-level data from Kenya indicates that establishments rely on technologies such as computers, generators, and cell-phones to conduct operations when regulations, infrastructure, security, workforce, corruption, and finance, pose significant hurdles in the business environment. Obstacles related to regulations, security, and workforce, increase t...

The authors examine whether measures of job quality in India's manufacturing sector differ systematically across states with varying types of labor regulation. Their analysis uses repeated cross sections of India's National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) household survey data from 1983 to 2004 merged with data on state-level regulations covering...

This chapter explores how women’s and men’s employment decisions respond to credit, with a particular focus on self-employment. The chapter also explores how new opportunities for women to engage in self-employment can have spillover effects within the household, especially for women’s bargaining power and the well-being of their children. Understa...

This paper examines the impact of fertilizer agrichemicals in water on infant and child health using water quality data combined with data on child health outcomes from the Demographic and Health Surveys of India. Because fertilizers are applied at specific times in the growing season, the concentrations of agrichemicals in water vary seasonally an...

Because the measures of women’s well-being and autonomy are diverse, this study takes the form of a narrative meta-analysis according to ideas that have emerged in the literature on land rights and women’s well-being. 1This literature is as diverse in its methods and data sources as it is in indicators of women’s well-being. Methods of analysis ran...

This study examines how the 2008-2009 surges in international food and fuel prices and coinciding global financial crisis impacted the Philippine labor market, with a focus on gendered outcomes. A battery of descriptive statistics and probit regressions based on repeated cross sections of the Philippine Labor Force Survey indicate that both men and...

This study examines how the 2008–2009 surges in international food and fuel prices and the coinciding global financial crisis impacted the Philippine labor market. Regression estimates using repeated quarterly waves of the Labor Force Survey indicate small declines in employment probabilities, while real wages fell more dramatically: about 6% durin...

Among countries with comparable levels of income, India has one of the more progressive disability policy frameworks; however, people with disabilities in India are subject to multiple disadvantages. This paper focuses on state-level variations in outcomes for people with disabilities to provide one explanation for the stark contrast between the li...

Household survey data for 1983-2000 from India's National Sample Survey Organisation are used to examine the impact of credit on self-employment among men and women in rural labour households. Results indicate that credit access encourages women's self-employment as own-account workers and employers, while it discourages men's self-employment as un...

Firms in Kenya rely on technologies such as computers, cell-phones, and generators to overcome constraints associated with regulations, infrastructure, security, workforce, corruption, and finance. This study shows that such reliance has significant positive impacts on productivity as measured by value-added per worker, especially for firms with fe...

This paper examines how Nepal’s 1996-2006 civil conflict affected women’s decisions to engage in employment. Using three waves of Nepal Demographic and Health Survey, we employ a difference-in-difference approach to identify the impact of war on women’s employment decisions. Results indicate that as a result of the Maoist-led insurgency, women’s em...

This study examines how the 2008-2009 surges in international food and fuel prices and coinciding global financial crisis impacted the Philippine labor market, with a focus on gendered outcomes. A battery of descriptive statistics and probit regressions based on repeated cross sections of the Philippine Labor Force Survey indicate that both men and...

This paper proposes a novel instrumental variable method for program evaluation that only requires a single cross-section of data on the spatial intensity of programs and outcomes. The instruments are derived from a simple theoretical model of government decision-making in which governments are responsive to the attributes of places and their popul...

It is generally assumed that credit has a positive effect on children's schooling among poor households. This article shows that need not be the case when households obtain credit for investment purposes. In fact, investment loans may not have any effect on the likelihood of schooling for children who work in their family business. Our estimates co...

The study provides new evidence on gender differences in educational attainment, labor market status, health status, and land titling in Vietnam. Up-to-date statistical evidence on household well-being in Vietnam is particularly important given the heavy weight the government has placed on meeting the needs of vulnerable members of the population,...

This study examines the effect of government health care and education programs on the poor in Chile from 2000 to 2006. Results are obtained from a country-wide provincial-level panel data set with information on poverty and indigence head-count ratios, measures on the severity of poverty as captured by the Foster–Greer–Thorbecke P2 statistic, per...

Although agriculture is the main occupation in rural Nepal, evidence suggests that households strive to diversify their sources of income. This paper investigates why this is the case. Using household data from the World Bank and information on rainfall for the various rural districts of Nepal, we find that occupational choice is highly correlated...

This paper uses household survey data from India's National Sample Survey Organization to examine why a structural overhaul in trade policies after the early 1990s has not been accompanied by greater improvements in women's relative wages. Despite a relative improvement in women's educational attainment, the mean gender wage ratio in manufacturing...

This study uses use four cross sections of household survey data collected by India's National Sample Survey Organization between 1983 and 2000 to examine the role of credit in encouraging small-scale entrepreneurship among men and women in rural labor households. Results from two-stage probit least squares estimations indicate that land ownership,...

Summary This study examines how increasing competitive forces from India's trade liberalization have affected women's relative wages and employment. Neoclassical theory implies that costly discrimination against female workers should diminish over time with increased competition. We incorporate this idea into a theoretical model of competition and...

Results of our empirical specifications indicate that increasing trade openness in India’s more concentrated manufacturing industries is associated with growing residual wage gaps between male and female employees. This finding suggests that with declining rents in the concentrated sector post-liberalization, women appear to have borne the brunt of...

In many economic settings, faster learning is achievable only through greater exposure to risk. We study this conflict in the context of project choice, where a risk-averse agent must choose whether to invest in two projects of the same type (focus) or of different types (diversification). Focus enables faster learning across periods, but is riskie...

This paper analyzes patterns of foreign direct investment in India. We investigate how labor conflict, credit constraints, and indicators of a state's economic health influence location decisions of foreign firms. We account for the possible endogeneity of labor conflict variables in modeling the location decisions of foreign firms. This is accompl...

This study addresses the question of how increasing competitive forces from India's trade liberalization have affected the wages of male and female workers. Neoclassical theory implies that costly discrimination against female workers should diminish over time with increased competition (Becker 1971). We incorporate this idea into a theoretical mod...

We use repayment data from Grameen Bank groups to study mutual dependence in behavior among participants. Such dependence is a measure of group cohesion, and is interpreted as evidence for the existence of inter-connectedness among members at the group level. Results from a dynamic fixed-effects probit model demonstrate that individual repayment ou...

As trade liberalization in India has unleashed a new wave of competitive forces in the economy since 1991, firms have faced growing pressure to cut costs in order to continue production. This study addresses the question of whether the increasing competitive forces from India's trade liberalization affected the wages of male and female workers diff...

This paper analyses the link between labour unions and child work in India. We investigate how measures of unionisation such as the number and membership of worker's unions, as well as education indicators, credit constraints, and other variables that capture a state's 'economic health', influence the number of working children across the states of...

This study studies the benefits of membership in microfinance programmes, and examines whether membership in these programmes is an effective instrument in smoothing inter-seasonal consumption. We hypothesise that the benefits to participation accrue differentially over time, as more experienced participants are better equipped on their own to mini...

Despite the prevalence of agriculture as the main occupation in rural Nepal, evidence suggests that households strive to diversify their sources of income. This paper investigates why this is the case. Using household data from the World Bank and information on rainfall for the various regions of Nepal, we find that occupational choice is mainly de...

This paper studies the benefits of participation in micro-finance programs, where benefits are measured in terms of the ability to smooth the effect of seasonal shocks that cause consumption fluctuations. It is shown that although membership in these programs is an effective instrument in combating inter-seasonal consumption differences, there is a...

Thanks also to seminar participants at Brown University, Georgetown University, The World Bank, Mathematica, and Brandeis University. I am indebted to two anonymous referees whose comments have significantly improved the paper. Funding from the Hewlett and Mellon foundations is gratefully acknowledged. I am responsible for all errors that remain.

Acrimonious relations between employers and employees in developing countries have often been cited as impediments to progress. This article considers various measures of labor disputes and investigates whether these have detrimental effects on the location choice of new domestic investment across the various states of India. Conventional wisdom ho...

This paper studies the influence of credit on children's schooling using data from Pakistan. It shows that credit need not increase the likelihood of school attendance for children who work in their household's non-farm enterprise. Moreover, credit obtained for investment purposes may reduce the likelihood of schooling for children who currently wo...

We study the issue of project choice when a risk-averse agent must choose whether to invest in two projects of the same type (focus) or of different types (diversification). Projects of the same type are subject to common type-specific shocks. Hence focusing is more risky within each period, but enables faster learning across periods. Optimal proje...

This paper studies the benefits of participation in micro credit programs, and examines whether membership in these programs is an effective instrument in smoothing inter-seasonal consumption. We hypothesize that the benefits to participation accrue differentially over time, as more experienced participants are better equipped on their own to minim...

Certain regulations in developing countries have often been cited as impediments to progress. This paper considers one facet of these regulations - labor laws - and investigates whether these have detrimental effects on firm location and investment decisions. Conventional wisdom holds that pro-worker labor regulations within a state would hinder fi...

This paper studies the benefits of participation in micro finance programs, and shows that although membership in these programs is an effective instrument in combating inter-seasonal consumption differences, there is a threshold level of length of participation beyond which benefits begin to diminish. Returns from membership are modeled using an E...

We use repayment data from Grameen Bank groups to study mutual dependence in behavior among participants. Such dependence is a measure of group cohesion, and is interpreted as evidence for the existence of inter-connectedness among members at the group level. Results from a dynamic fixed-effects probit model demonstrate that individual repayment ou...

India has one of the more progressive disability policy frameworks among developing countries, but the disabled in India are subject to multiple disadvantages in most walks of life. This paper focuses on state-level variations in outcomes for persons with disabilities to provide one explanation for the stark contrast between the liberal laws on pap...

Available in film copy from University Microfilms International. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2001. Vita. Thesis advisor: Mark M. Pitt. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-106).