Assessing the impact of rural electrification on gender inequality in rural India: A state-level analysis

Electricity has an unswerving impact on financial sustainability of a country; hence, everybody must have equal access to electricity. However, in a developing country like India, the inequality in electricity distribution intensifies in the rural areas and gets further skewed with respect to gender. The skewness is owing to the differential gender needs. The study has attempted to empirically analyze the impact of rural electrification on gender inequality across rural areas of 36 Indian states and union territories over 2015-2019. Gender inequality is measured through the ratio of female and male rural labor force participation, while rural literacy gap and selfhelp group loans are taken as controls. The analysis is carried out at the aggregate level, followed by segregation based on presence or absence of women police stations, geographical regions, and quantiles. The results show that although rural electrification and other drivers of gender inequality can have positive impact on achieving rural gender equality in rural India, there is need of policies that can help in maximizing use of electrification.