Rolly Kapoor on Group Travel and Women's Job Search Behavior in India

Ideas of India

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We are kicking off the 2024 job market series, where I speak with young scholars entering the academic job market about their latest research on India.

Our first scholar in the series is Rolly Kapoor, who is a PhD candidate at the Department of Economics at University of California, Santa Cruz. Before this, she received a BA in Economics from Delhi University and an MSE in Economics from University College London.

Her research focuses on issues related to gender, access and urban mobility in developing countries. We spoke about her job market paper titled, Together to Work? The Effect of Travel Buddies on Women’s Employment and Mobility in India, co-authored with Smit Gade. We talked about the difficulties women have in navigating urban areas, its effect on female labor force participation, the impact of safe travel on job market decisions, and much more.

Recorded September 6th, 2024.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:14) - Grand Tamasha

(00:05:07) - Mobility Constraints for Women in India

(00:07:37) - The Study: How Do Women Travel Together?

(00:10:04) - Background on Women’s Travel in India

(00:13:00) - Social Norms and the Cognitive Load: Benefits of Women Traveling Together

(00:16:42) - Findings on Travel Buddies and Job Interview Attendance and Additional Positive Impacts

(00:21:14) - Implications for Further Research on Women’s Mobility Patterns

(00:26:40) - Diverse Reactions to Travel Interventions

(00:28:32) - Policy Implications for Supporting Women’s Travel

(00:33:43) - Other Research Projects on Women and Labor

(00:39:29) - Outro