Shifting partnership ideals with online technologies among unmarried women in India
Pesando, Luca Maria (New York University Abu Dhabi)
Sarkar, Koyel (Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics)
Kornrich, Sabino (New York University Abu Dhabi)
Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics

Fecha:	2025
Resumen:	This study complements existing scholarship in family sociology and digital demography by investigating the role of digital technologies in shaping partnership ideals among unmarried women in India. We build on the premise that, by means of faster communication, effective information dissemination, and reciprocal exchange of norms and ideals, recurrent exposure to globalized cultural scripts through the Internet may shape family-related outcomes such as views and opinions regarding different aspects of family life. Leveraging new data from a primary survey of unmarried, partnered women living in cities across twenty states, we find that daily Internet use is positively and significantly associated with modern partnership ideals, measured as secularized views on the choice of a partner, the importance of marriage, partner preferences, and views about love marriage. Moreover, we show that accessing the Internet independently-vis-à-vis through a shared device-is what matters the most, and that results are stronger among high-educated individuals. We assess the selectivity of the sample by conducting subgroup analyses and replicating our findings on the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2019-2021. Lastly, we offer evidence that these findings can be deemed causal, complementing our results with an instrumental-variable approach leveraging digital geographical information. Our findings reveal that digital technologies may be gradually contributing to shifting views about marriage and family formation, even in a context such as India, which has traditionally exhibited strong resistance to modernization forces, at least in the realm of the family.
Derechos:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Lengua:	Anglès
Documento:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Materia:	Ideals ; India ; Internet ; Technology ; Union formation
Publicado en:	Social Forces, July 2025, ISSN 1534-7605

DOI: 10.1093/sf/soaf100

27 p, 1.2 MB

El registro aparece en las colecciones:
Documentos de investigación > Documentos de los grupos de investigación de la UAB > Centros y grupos de investigación (producción científica) > Ciencias sociales y jurídicas > Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics (CED-CERCA)
Artículos > Artículos de investigación
Artículos > Artículos publicados