The Protestant Legacy: Missions, Gender, and Human Capital in India

We study the long-term impact of Protestant missions in colonial India on present-day literacy, education,and gender equality in human capital outcomes. We combine contemporary administrativeand survey data with archival information on the spatial distribution of missions and the gendercomposition of missionaries in early twentieth-century India. We document a positive long-runlink between Protestant missions and human capital today. The relationship is particularly strongfor women and for missions with higher female presence. While the data to fully explore the underlyingmechanisms are limited, we show that exposure to Protestant missionaries may have inducedshifts in gender attitudes.