Hindu women in India have independent right of ownership to property under the Law of Succession (The Hindu Succession Act, 1956). However, during the last five decades of its operation not many women have exercised their rights under the enactment. This volume addresses the issue of Hindu peasant women's ability to effectuate the statutory rights to succession and assert ownership of their share in family land. The work combines a critical evaluation of law with economic analyses into allocation of resources within the family as a means of addressing gender relations and explaining resulting gender inequalities.

Hindu women in India have independent right of ownership to property under the Law of Succession (The Hindu Succession Act, 1956). However, during the last five decades of its operation not many women have exercised their rights under the enactment. This volume addresses the issue of Hindu peasant women's ability to effectuate the statutory rights to succession and assert ownership of their share in family land. The work combines a critical evaluation of law with economic analyses into allocation of resources within the family as a means of addressing gender relations and explaining resulting gender inequalities.

An analysis of gender and property throughout South Asia which argues that the most important economic factor affecting women is the gender gap in command over property.

Quotas for women in government have swept the globe. Yet we know little about their capacity to upend entrenched social, political, and economic hierarchies. Women, Power, and Property explores this question within the context of India, the world's largest democracy. Brulé employs a research design that maximizes causal inference alongside extensive field research to explain the relationship between political representation, backlash, and economic empowerment. Her findings show that women in government – gatekeepers – catalyze access to fundamental economic rights to property. Women in politics have the power to support constituent rights at critical junctures, such as marriage negotiations, when they can strike integrative solutions to intrahousehold bargaining. Yet there is a paradox: quotas are essential for enforcement of rights, but they generate backlash against women who gain rights without bargaining leverage. In this groundbreaking study, Brulé shows how well-designed quotas can operate as a crucial tool to foster equality and benefit the women they are meant to empower.

Focuses on the Hindu Succession Act of 1956.

Recognition of the potentially deleterious implications of inequality in opportunity originating in a skewed asset distribution has spawned considerable interest in land reforms. However, little attention has been devoted to the fact that, in the longer-term, the measures used to implement land reforms, especially rental restrictions, could negatively affect productivity. Use of state level data on rental restrictions, together with a nationally representative survey from India suggests that, contrary to original intentions, rental restrictions negatively affect productivity and equity by reducing scope for efficiency-enhancing rental transactions that benefit poor producers. Simulations suggest that, by doubling the number of producers with access to land through rental, from about 15 million currently, liberalization of rental markets could have far-reaching impacts.

This book presents an informative examination of how the issue of womenâ (TM)s land rights has been dealt with both in Indian literature, particularly Indian English fiction, and in Indian society. The human rights of women are a revolutionary notion that has opened the way for the definition, analysis, and articulation of womenâ (TM)s experiences of widespread violence, degradation, discrimination, and marginality. Globally, womenâ (TM)s land rights are becoming an area of increasing urgency and concern as discrimination against women over land, property and inheritance rights continues to keep them in a subordinate position even today. Land empowers, and equality in land rights is an indicator of womenâ (TM)s economic empowerment and at the same time helps in poverty reduction. Many Indian writers, especially Indian English women novelists, have dealt with issues of land, dispossession, hunger and poverty in rural India in particular, but none have explicitly referred to womenâ (TM)s land rights. For men, land is an essential element of their identity as â ~providerâ (TM), but for women it is a demand for recognition as a human being. However, women in India are rarely landowners, and in most Indian families women do not own any property in their own names. They are usually refused a share in the paternal property, although, according to the Indian Succession Act, 1925, everyone is entitled to equal inheritance. Unfortunately in India, law and society conspire to deny women their right to land ownership, although there have been several legal amendments to redress this gender inequality. This book deals with the gap that lies between womenâ (TM)s land rights in India and the actual ownership of land.

An internationally acclaimed economist, Bina Agarwal is known for her path-breaking writings on agriculture, property rights, and the environment. Her three-volume compendium brings together a selection of her essays, written over three decades. Combining diverse disciplines, methodologies, and cross-country comparisons, the essays challenge standard economic analyses and assumptions from a gender perspective. They provide original insights on a wide range of theoretical, empirical, and policy issues of continuing importance in contemporary debates. The first volume spans varied dimensions of the author’s writings on agrarian change, from 1981 to the present. It identifies gender inequalities in the impact of agricultural modernisation and technical change across Asia and Africa; the links between women, poverty, and economic growth processes; and data biases in measuring women’s work. It traces the gendered costs of droughts and famine, and challenges top-down methods of innovation diffusion. Focusing on the key role of women farmers in food security, it also offers innovative solutions, including public land banks and group farming. The second volume focuses on the author’s paradigm-shifting work on women’s property status in South Asia. Challenging conventional approaches to women’s empowerment, it demonstrates how promoting access to property, especially land, is key to enhancing women’s economic and social well-being and deterring domestic violence. It details gender inequalities in inheritance laws, public policies, and land struggles, and presents the bargaining framework for understanding and finding ways of overcoming these inequalities, both within families and in markets, communities, and vis-à-vis the state. This third volume traces the relationship between gender and environmental change. Critiquing ecofeminist assumptions, it presents an alternative theoretical framework. It also examines the causes of women’s absence as well as the impact of their presence in environmental collective action. Based on innovative fieldwork on community institutions for forest governance, the author demonstrates how a critical mass of women can significantly improve conservation outcomes. In conclusion, she reflects on which features of feminist scholarship make for an effective challenge to mainstream economics.