Bishmu Gupta

University of Warwick

Abstract: Where do gender norms that favour men come from? While the status of women in India has its origins in part in son preference, the proposed explanations of son preference in the literature, such as cultivation of rice and wheat and women’s participation in these activities are often poor predictors of sex ratios (Fenske, Gupta, and Neumann, 2022). In this project, we use pre-colonial conflict exposure for each district of modern India and several data sources on the status of women, including colonial and modern censuses, Demographic and Health Surveys, and data on crimes against women  and find that, conditional on geographic controls and state fixed effects, greater pre-colonial conflict predicts: More male-biased sex ratios, in particular among “other backward class”  Hindus today and more missing women in the population in 2011. We also find more crimes against women in recent administrative data. Conflict exposure predicts lower female shares in 1931. We argue that the mechanism is old and operates throughout the life cycle. We confirm these results using an instrument based on proximity to the Khyber Pass, “the most important highway to India”. The results survive controlling for centuries of foreign conquest, direct rule, language, and religion.