Basten (2009) reviews the literature on how television programming influences fertility, and Jensen and Oster (2009) find both that the introduction of cable television to rural villages in India is strongly related to electricity access, and that cable has a negative effect on fertility over and above any impact of electricity itself.<sup>48</sup> La Ferrara et al. (2008) find that the introduction of a television network carrying popular soap operas reduces fertility by a small amount in both aggregate and individual level regressions. In Cote d‘Ivoire, Peters et al. (forthcoming) find that ―those in rural areas with electricity have 0.1333 (p=0.066) less children than rural residents without electricity. By contrast, urban residents with electricity have 0.121 (p=0.035) more children than city dwellers lacking electricity.‖<sup>49</sup> This, together with IEG‘s (2008) finding that electricity reduces fertility even after controlling for television watching in many countries, suggests that there may be more impact channels than simply better access to information on family planning. To the extent that electricity increases the efficiency of work typically allocated to children (such as pumping water), it could directly reduce the demand for children (Dasgupta, 1993). Electric lights effectively make the night shorter, providing alternative recreational activities and less privacy for intercourse (cf., Burlando 2010). On the other hand, electricity can decrease the cost of raising children, which may explain the positive effect of electricity on fertility in urban Cote d‘Ivoire (cf., Greenwood et al. 2005 and Cornwell and Robinson 1988 for the US, with conflicting evidence presented by Bailey and Collins 2009).

**_4.2.4 Women’s empowerment and gender roles (via television)_**

**There is a small but important body of evidence on the impacts of television on gender roles and women’s empowerment, substantiating the frequent references to this in the case study literature and identifying a potential causal mechanism for greater women’s empowerment in electrified vs. non-electrified villages in Bangladesh as identified by Barkat (2002) and impacts of electrification in Bhutan found by ADB (2010).  For example, Chong and La Ferrara (2009) find that access to the television network that carries telenovelas in Brazil resulted in higher divorce rates, which the broader literature suggests may be related to empowerment of women although it may have adverse consequences for children.  More directly, Jensen and Oster (2009) find that access to cable television results in lower acceptance of spousal abuse, lower son preference, more autonomy, and greater likelihood of sending young girls to school in rural India.  This suggests a potentially important impact channel for achieving the third Millennium Development Goal, albeit depending on the complementary input of television programming that directly or indirectly promotes women’s empowerment. The impact may stem from imitation of role models of emancipated women in fictional TV dramas.**

Cecelski (2004) argues that the question of ―rural electrification‘s impact on gender relations‖ is critical and neglected. She notes that some researchers are skeptical about the possibility that electricity alone could empower women, but suggests that there are several possible pathways. For example, ESMAP studies in India and the Philippines found that women in electrified households read more, and EnPoGen studies in Sri Lanka and Indonesia concluded ―that electrification strengthened women‘s position in the household, by encouraging families to spend time together in the evening and giving women the same access to entertainment and information from TV‖ (Cecelski 2004). Barkat (2002)

> 48 Jensen and Oster (2008) estimate fixed effects regression of fertility on cable in village, including interactions between a year indicator and state dummies, income, education, age and age-squared, village population density, electrification status and distance to nearest town.  Their estimates are essentially for changes in attitudes and behaviors within a certain person, with the fixed affects absorbing all time-invariant characteristics of the person and the household (such as the type of job held by the husband).  They also examine pre-trends, and find that areas which get cable next year have no apparent changes in attitudes and behaviors this year, supporting their conclusion of causal impacts.

> 49 Peters et al. (forthcoming) estimate Poisson regressions of the number of children born since 1980 as a function of electricity in the community, electricity interacted with rural vs. urban status, and characteristics of the household and women.  Thus, they rely on these covariates in the multivariate regression model to control for any selection bias related to the expansion of the electricity grid.

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