Policy measures that seek to address son preference through restrictions on the tools
of sex-selective abortions, without addressing the underlying causes, have been found to
generate negative welfare consequences for unwanted surviving girls. Unlike these topdown supply-side measures, demand-side measures that focus on increasing the demand
for girls by shifting social norms of son preference can mitigate these adverse welfare
consequences. We study the impact of an intervention aimed at reducing discrimination
against girls, which has both supply-side and demand-side elements. The intervention,
implemented in India between 2015-18 included a mass media campaign designed to
increase the perception of the value of a female child, while also tightening the policing
of illegal sex-selective abortions. We exploit variation in the timing of exposure to
the programme across Indian districts as well as quasi-exogenous variation in the sex
of the firstborn child to identify the impact of the programme and find that it led to
an increased proportion of female births as well as a reduction in the gender gap in
mortality in intensively treated families. The main mechanism that explains our results
is a relative increase in health investments in daughters, such as breastfeeding and
vaccinations.
