Cable TV and Women in India - Is This Economics?

From Capital Ideas comes this discussion of Emily Oster's research with Robert Jensen on the status of women in India. (HT JC Bradbury):

Jensen and Oster found large effects of cable on both of these variables. Women who live in villages that introduce cable see large declines in both the number of acceptable beating situations and son preference; villages that do not introduce cable see no change. This change happens between 2001 and 2002 for villages that introduce cable in 2002, and between 2002 and 2003 for villages that introduce cable in 2003. In other words, the timing of the change in attitudes lines up with the timing of the change in cable access.

Indicators involving changes in actual behaviors, as opposed to attitudes, likewise suggest substantial improvement in women’s status. Jensen and Oster measured female autonomy based on responses to questions about participation in household decision making: does the woman make choices about obtaining health care, purchasing goods, do they need to get permission to visit friends and family, etc. Overall autonomy increased significantly after the introduction of cable and, again, this change happened at the same time as the cable introduction. The authors also found a decrease in pregnancy after cable introduction.

Interesting stuff.  Here is an NBER Digest about the paper. and here's a link to the abstract of the NBER version of the paper.  I have no bone to pick with the research (it's out of my field of interest), but is this really economics?  Economics deals with human behavior under scarcity.  Clearly the research deals with an aspect of human behavior, but I don't see where scarcity comes into play.

Comments

[Ironman]

If I read the summary correctly, the issue of scarcity is centered on time - how the affected individuals' decisions on what activities will consume their time changes when a new activity becomes available to substitute for a current activity.

Interesting that the substitution coincides women taking on more autonomy in household decision making, which would free the men to be able to watch more cable TV with the time freed from such activities. Being India, my guess is televised cricket matches are to blame!...

[Phil]

A colleague notes that they use novel econometrics. I think that's the gist here. But that begs the question: are we economists or are we statisticians? I type that with all due respect.

[Ironman]

If you're an econometrician, is there really a difference?

Looking at it from a cliometric viewpoint, I think economics stopped being just about scarcity some time ago - the behavioral branch of the field alone is a testament to that (or for that matter, the cliometric branch!) Economics today is the closest thing to an all-encompassing field of study of human activity, which is why it would seem to be becoming the overwhelmingly dominant field of social science.

[Phil]

Yes, there is a difference. Econometrics deals with subjects in simple linear regression. The question I have is why didn't those trained in stats dig into the questions that economists ended up answering?

There's a reason I love Ironman: he understands Economic Imperialism!

[Ironman]

"The question I have is why didn't those trained in stats dig into the questions that economists ended up answering?"

It would seem that economic imperialists are also opportunistic entrepreneurs. Like KFC and potholes going unfixed, they leapt at the chance to put their brand on the street, where others who had the first shot to do something about it, but didn't take it, failed.

http://www.kfc.com/about/newsroom/032509.asp

It's the free market at work!

[Sorry if I revealed too much of the secret plan for world domination!]

[Phil]

Exactly. It's how the marketplace of ideas is supposed to work.