Replication Files: Land, Ladies, and the Law: A Case Study on Women’s Land Rights and Welfare in Southeast Asia in the Nineteenth Century

This study evaluates women’s de jure and de facto land rights and its implications for household welfare in nineteenth-century central Siam. Women constituted a significant proportion of agricultural landowners holding government-issued land deeds in central Siam—a pattern that stands in contrast to both historical and contemporary developing economy contexts where the structure of land rights often favors men. We find through both direct and indirect evidence that women’s de jure rights were upheld in practice. Women made significantly more agricultural investments than male or mixed-gender owners, which supports the assertion that women perceived their land rights as secure under Siam’s traditional usufruct land rights system. An assessment of land-related court cases directly supports our claim, showing that women in Siam had access to legal representation and were protected when their land rights were challenged by investors and local elites in the wake of increased demand for both agricultural and urban land due to a significant expansion in Siam’s international rice trade and Bangkok’s rapid urbanization. Such secure land rights helped preserve their livelihoods as agriculturists and household wellbeing. We estimate that the median woman-owned orchard plot could annually support ten adults, achieving a standard of living comparable to unskilled labourer households in Beijing and Milan during the same period.