Does Educational Superiority Autonomize Daughters-in-Law Who Live with Their Mothers-in-Law? A Test of Caldwell’s Thesis

Manisha Sengupta, Johns Hopkins University
Nan Johnson, Michigan State University

In India, where a partiarchial kinship system tends to limit a young bride from household decision making and restricts her movement inside and outside the home, previous studies conclude that with education women are more equipped to deal with and perhaps defy the socio-cultural system. Caldwell contends that South Asian daughters-in-law who live with their mothers-in-law are more autonomous if they are better educated than their mothers-in-law. Yet, little empirical research has addressed the links between a woman's autonomy, her educational achievement and the educational achievement of her mother-in-law. Using data from the National family Health Survey II (1998-99), this paper attempts to address this gap in empirical studies that address women's autonomy and education. Measuring autonomy as a function of perception and experience, results from our logistic regression models suggest that education has important implications for women's empowerment and an interesting intergenerational dyadic relation exists within the household.