tailieunhanh - THE POWER OF TV: CABLE TELEVISION AND WOMEN'S STATUS IN INDIA

In multiuser rate allocation problem, a set of transmitters want to transmit the video sequences to corresponding receivers through a common channel that is shared by all transmitters. Since the transmitters compete for the same resource, ., channel bandwidth, they form a non-cooperative social network. The key problem in this social network is how to e±ciently and fairly allocate data rate among di®erent users. Most of the existing optimization-based methods, such as minimizing the weighted sum of the distortions or maximizing the weighted sum of the peak signal- to-noise ratios (PSNRs), have their weights heuristically determined. Moreover, those approaches mainly focus on the e±ciency issue while there is. | THE POWER OF TV CABLE TELEVISION AND WOMEN S STATUS IN INDIA Robert Jensen School of Public Affairs UCLA Watson Institute for International Studies Brown University and NBER Emily Oster University of Chicago and NBER Forthcoming Quarterly Journal of Economics Abstract Cable and satellite television have spread rapidly throughout the developing world. These media sources expose viewers to new information about the outside world and other ways of life which may affect attitudes and behaviors. This paper explores the effect of the introduction of cable television on women s status in rural India. Using a three-year individual-level panel dataset we find that the introduction of cable television is associated with significant decreases in the reported acceptability of domestic violence towards women and son preference as well as increases in women s autonomy and decreases in fertility. We also find suggestive evidence that exposure to cable increases school enrollment for younger children perhaps through increased participation of women in household decision-making. We argue that the results are not driven by pre-existing differential trends. 1 Introduction The growth of television in the developing world over the last two decades has been extraordinary. Estimates suggest that the number of television sets in Asia has increased more than six-fold from 100 million to 650 million since the 1980s Thomas 2003 . In China television exposure grew from 18 million people in 1977 to 1 billion by 1995 Thomas 2003 . In more recent years satellite and cable television availability has increased dramatically. Again in China the number of people with satellite access increased from just 270 000 in 1991 to 14 million by 2005. Further these numbers are likely to understate the change in the number of people for whom television is available since a single television is often watched by many. Several studies have demonstrated that the information and exposure provided by television can