Sarah Vincent is a PhD job market candidate at Aix-Marseille School of Economics. This post pertains to joint work with Aditi Singh a PhD candidate from the University of British Colombia.
Click here for Sarah’s job market paper Elevator Pitch.
Family planning policies have been widely implemented since the 19th century as a development tool to address concerns of overpopulation, constrained resources, economic growth and social welfare. However, some programs have faced allegations of enforcing coercive measures such as involuntary sterilizations, forced abortions, or other practices threatening individual autonomy and reproductive rights, sometimes resorting to violence.
Extensive literature exists on the negative influence of forced medical program implementation on trust, health, and economic consequences (Lowes and Montero, 2021). However, there remains a significant gap regarding how coercive programs can generate discontent and influence violence, which would shed light on the broader societal and economic consequences of their implementation.
In my job market paper, we examine how a male coercive sterilization program in India from April 1976 to February 1977 influenced violent behaviours. In our estimation, violent crimes increase on average by 7% after the program, coming from an average increase of rapes by 22%, persistent over years. Emergency India
The program used coercive methods to implement a policy to reduce fertility during Emergency India (1975-77), a state of emergency declared by Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister at the time, to fight poverty. State governments could withhold promotions and payments until individuals underwent sterilization or recruited others for the same, often using the threat of job termination to ensure compliance. Additionally, the government required sterilization certificates for access to basic necessities, including housing, irrigation, ration cards, and public healthcare facilities. Husbands with two or more children were notably pressured into sterilization (Tarlo, 2003 ; Jaffrelot and Anil, 2021).
This aggressive family planning program resulted in 6.2 million men getting sterilized in 1976-77, a substantial increase compared to the 1.5 million vasectomies performed in 1975-76, making the program one of the largest coerced sterilization programs implemented worldwide.
How to measure coercion intensity?
We measure the degree of districts’ coercive method implementation by comparing the growth rate of sterilizations between 1975-76 and 1976-77. A significant increase in sterilizations during 1976-77 is indicative of coercion.
Figure 1 illustrates coercion intensity, which goes from 0 to 29% and is heterogeneously dispersed throughout India.
Data and empirical strategy
We digitized crime rates at the district level in India from the National Crime Records Bureau from 1972, the first year, available to 2013. We run static and dynamic difference-in-differences regressions with district and time-fixed effects.
Our identification strategy does not rely on randomness of the implementation. However, a potential concern is the presence of other interventions that may have targeted the same districts over the years and would impact crime rates. We consider this possibility highly unlikely for several reasons:
- Our treatment variable is continuous and precise.
- We control with police forces at the state level.
- The other programs initiated during the Emergency were not implemented with the same intensity or proven efficacy and are unlikely to have had an impact on violence.
Main result: Coercion Intensity increases violence against women
Our findings show that the intensity of coercion does not affect total crimes, property crimes, or riots. However, it does lead to an increase in violent crimes, primarily driven by a rise in rapes, which are classified as violence against women in India, as nearly all reported victims are women. We estimate that rapes increase by up to 123%, with an average increase of 22% following the program’s implementation.
In Figure 2, the dynamic regression coefficients reveal that the impact on rapes persists over time for districts with higher coercion levels (above 6%), specifically the top 25% of coerced districts. This effect remains significant until the end of our study in 2013.
During this time, 95% of rape perpetrators in India were men aged 18 to 50, who were not the main target of the sterilization program. The average age of men sterilized in 1976-77 was 35, indicating for a cultural transmission of violence.
We hypothesize that a compulsory male sterilization program may impact violence against women through various channels: (i) reduced fertility leading to changes in gender roles and ratios, (ii) the procedure inducing trauma, and (iii) impacting perceptions of masculinity, triggering violence.
Violence isn’t caused by a reduced fertility…
We use a representative household survey to study the impact of coercion intensity on births. We run a difference-in-differences regression depending on the number of children that households had before 1977, as households with 2 children or more were targeted during the program. Surprisingly, we find that a 1 percentage point increase in coercion intensity leads to a very small positive increase in fertility post-1976, not a decrease. We see that this result is driven by families who did not have a son or by large families.
The rise in fertility becomes apparent in 1983, three years after Indira Gandhi’s re-election and a period of increased tensions in India, hinting at a potential new political crisis. This implies that households in districts previously affected by the 1976-77 forced vasectomies may have been worried about a possible reintroduction of such a program and chose to have more children as a precaution.
…but most likely by a reaction to trauma or threat against masculinity
The forced sterilization campaign, primarily aimed at men for population control, might have challenged traditional masculinity, potentially leading to feelings of emasculation (Scott, 2014). There is a broad psychology literature that has documented the link between manhood and the propensity for aggression and violence (Bosson et al., 2019).
Moreover, extensive psychological links male violence towards women to experiences of childhood or adulthood trauma (Oehme et al., 2012 ; Mrug et al., 2016). Although our findings do not directly identify the age of the perpetrators of crimes, data indicates most rape cases in India are committed by younger men, who would have been children or adolescents during the Emergency. Witnessing threats to male peers or experiencing violence at home during that time could be traumatic, potentially leading to increased violence in adulthood.
To explore this channel, we conduct a simple difference analysis using the 1999 Demographic and Health Surveys, which is the first household-level survey in India to include questions on domestic violence. We find that coercion intensity correlates with higher levels and acceptance of intimate partner violence, and lower bargaining power of women, suggesting more harmful attitudes against women in more coerced districts in 1999.
Limitations and policy relevance
Our study is constrained by data limitations, particularly in pinpointing the mechanisms driving the observed results. More extensive research on the impact on happiness or trauma or stress will help us grasp a broader understanding of further implications of the program.
These findings suggest that there is an understudied layer of forced interventions, they are even worse than we thought. Caution is urged, especially in programs targeting notions of masculinity, to safeguard individual rights and prevent unintended repercussions.
Feature Photo – BBC -2015
