{"id":21493,"date":"2022-05-09T14:29:15","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T18:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/?p=21493"},"modified":"2022-09-15T08:10:52","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T12:10:52","slug":"convincing-the-mummy-ji-improving-mother-in-law-approval-of-family-planning-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/gdp\/2022\/05\/09\/convincing-the-mummy-ji-improving-mother-in-law-approval-of-family-planning-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Convincing the Mummy-ji: Improving Mother-in-Law Approval of Family Planning in India"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Lanty via Unsplash.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Family, as the most basic social institution in the world, has been of longstanding interest to researchers and policymakers alike. Studies of family structure in developed societies have predominantly examined kinship and intrafamilial ties within nuclear family settings, with an extensive literature devoted to marital and parent\u2013child relationships. In contrast, relationships within nonnuclear family structures have received considerably less attention, particularly in developing countries where strong extended family ties are prevalent.<\/span><\/p>\n

One such nonnuclear relationship is that between mothers-in-law (MILs) and daughters-in-law (DILs), which is of particular importance in South Asian settings where women move into their husbands\u2019 (often extended) households following marriage. In these patrilocal-patrilineal societies, a woman\u2019s MIL, as the likely matriarch of the household, plays a crucial role in determining her mobility, access to services and resources outside the home and overall well-being.<\/span><\/p>\n

In <\/span>a new study<\/i><\/b><\/a> published in the American Economic Association\u2019s <\/span>Papers and Proceedings<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Mahesh Karra<\/span><\/a> and colleagues focus on interactions between MILs and DILs related to fertility and family planning in rural Uttar Pradesh, India. They first document the extent to which fertility preferences are misaligned between women and their MILs. They then evaluate the impact of a randomized intervention that provided women with vouchers for subsidized family planning services on their ability to engage with their MILs on a sensitive and private topic like family planning and on their MIL\u2019s approval of family planning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main findings<\/b>:<\/span><\/p>\n