Piped Water and Gender Empowerment

Policy Context

In urban India, access to clean, reliable water remains a critical policy challenge, particularly in informal settlements. This burden disproportionately falls on women, who are primarily responsible for household water collection. Despite government efforts to expand piped water access, service delivery remains uneven and often excludes marginalized populations. This study provides timely evidence on how citizen-led mobilization—especially around gendered public goods like water—can shift both service provision and women’s empowerment outcomes. As cities grapple with climate-driven water stress, understanding the downstream gendered impacts of improved access is essential for designing equitable, effective water and gender policies at the local level.

Study Design

This study leverages a downstream randomized controlled trial (RCT) conducted in 2018 among 7,000 households in informal settlements in Mumbai, India. In the original RCT, households were randomly assigned to receive assistance in politically mobilizing for access to piped water, a critical and gendered public good. Mobilization efforts were conducted in partnership with local NGOs and targeted primarily women, who are disproportionately burdened by inadequate water access. The intervention successfully increased the likelihood of receiving piped water. Researchers now aim to follow up with this same population to assess the medium-term, downstream effects of both (a) political mobilization and (b) improved water access on women’s and children’s wellbeing.

The unit of analysis is the individual woman and her household. The research team will collect new survey data and link it to the original treatment assignment to estimate both reduced-form effects (impact of mobilization) and treatment-on-the-treated effects (impact of receiving water). Key outcomes include women’s intra-household bargaining power, political participation, and economic activity, as well as children’s health and educational outcomes. The study will use intention-to-treat and instrumental variable approaches to isolate causal effects. All analysis will follow a pre-registered pre-analysis plan to ensure transparency and replicability.

Results and Policy Lessons

The study has not yet produced empirical results, as it is entering the data collection phase. New survey data will be collected beginning in spring 2026 from approximately 7,000 households that participated in the original randomized controlled trial conducted in 2018. Analysis will commence after fieldwork is completed and merged with baseline data.

While outcome estimates are forthcoming, preparatory work has confirmed the feasibility of recontacting the original sample and linking new data to prior treatment assignment. The forthcoming analysis will assess whether citizen-led political mobilization for piped water access generated sustained improvements in women’s empowerment, including intra-household bargaining power, economic activity, and political participation, as well as downstream effects on children’s health and education.

Once data collection and analysis are complete, the results are expected to inform debates on whether collective action around gendered public goods can produce durable gains in both service delivery and gender equity in urban informal settlements.