{"id":11414,"date":"2020-08-25T17:18:18","date_gmt":"2020-08-25T21:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/?p=11414"},"modified":"2023-03-27T16:07:35","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T20:07:35","slug":"curse-of-the-mummy-ji-the-influence-of-mothers-in-law-on-women-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/2020\/08\/25\/curse-of-the-mummy-ji-the-influence-of-mothers-in-law-on-women-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Curse of the Mummy\u2010ji: The Influence of Mothers\u2010in\u2010Law on Women in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment18670\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment18670\" style=\"width: 646px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/gdp\/files\/2020\/08\/elcarito-StDikv_0r18-unsplash-636x424.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"636\" height=\"424\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-18670\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2020\/08\/elcarito-StDikv_0r18-unsplash-636x424.jpg 636w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2020\/08\/elcarito-StDikv_0r18-unsplash-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2020\/08\/elcarito-StDikv_0r18-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2020\/08\/elcarito-StDikv_0r18-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/files\/2020\/08\/elcarito-StDikv_0r18-unsplash-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 636px) 100vw, 636px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment18670\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by elCarito via Unsplash.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Worldwide, social networks play an important role in the lives of individuals, influencing everything from the knowledge people acquire to the goods and services they utilize. However, not everyone experiences equal opportunity to gain from social connections. In traditional patriarchal societies, women may have limited ability to access and benefit from existing networks due to restrictive social norms and strategic constraints imposed by family members.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/ajae.12114\"><b><i>new journal article<\/i><\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> published in the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">American Journal of Agricultural Economics,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> HCI Associate Director <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/profile\/mahesh-karra\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mahesh Karra<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and coauthors <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">characterize young married women&#8217;s social networks in rural India, analyzing how intergenerational power dynamics within the household affect their network formation. Using data from 18-30 year-old married women in the Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh, the authors show co-residence with the mother-in-law (MIL) is negatively correlated with her daughter-in-law&#8217;s mobility and ability to form social connections outside the household, especially those related to health, fertility and family planning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Main findings<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Women in the sample are quite isolated\u2014besides her husband and MIL, an average woman interacts with 1.6 individuals in Jaunpur about issues that are important to her and with 0.7 individuals in Jaunpur about more private matters like reproductive health, fertility and family planning.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nearly 36 percent of women in the sample have no close peers in Jaunpur, and the modal woman has only one close peer in Jaunpur. In fact, the proportion of women in the sample who have no close peers anywhere (inside or outside Jaunpur) is also substantial (22 percent).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The mobility restrictions experienced by the sample women are severe\u2014only 14 percent of the women are allowed to go alone to a health facility, and only 12 percent are permitted to visit the homes of friends or relatives in their village by themselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Compared to a woman who does not reside with her MIL, a woman who lives with her MIL has 18 percent fewer close peers in her village with whom she interacts about issues related to health, fertility and family planning, and has 36 percent fewer such peers outside the home.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Karra and coauthors\u2019 results suggest MILs restrict the social networks of daughters-in-law by not permitting them to visit places outside the home alone. Restrictions imposed by MILs can have detrimental impacts on the daughter-in-law\u2019s well-being, as women who have fewer close outside peers are less likely to visit health facilities to receive reproductive health, fertility or family planning services, and are less likely to use modern contraceptive methods. These findings indicate the need for future family planning interventions in patriarchal communities to address the gatekeeper role of MILs and to inform them about the benefits of family planning and reproductive health services.<\/span><\/p>\n<a href=\"\/gdp\/files\/2022\/12\/WP13-Karra-12-22-1.pdf\" class=\"button\">Read the Working Paper<\/a>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/ajae.12114\" class=\"button\">Read the Journal Article<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Worldwide, social networks play an important role in the lives of individuals, influencing everything from the knowledge people acquire to the goods and services they utilize. However, not everyone experiences equal opportunity to gain from social connections. In traditional patriarchal societies, women may have limited ability to access and benefit from existing networks due to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17957,"featured_media":18670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1149,156,126,128,1076,131,168,166,301,30],"tags":[147,266,1089,1078,1207,873,1026,513,1677,523,1025,1536,963,964,1318,524,1088],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11414"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23913,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11414\/revisions\/23913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}