Several countries have enacted lockdown measures in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic to protect their health systems and reduce the number of mortalities. One of the most extreme national lockdown measures has been taken by the government of India...
The impact of childbirth on women’s employment has been discussed extensively in the context of developed countries. Constraints on mothers’ labour market participation and consequent fall in earnings are characterized as the ‘motherhood penalty’...
Kanika Mahajan, a researcher engaged in UNU-WIDER's project on 'The changing nature of work and inequality', is the August 2021 featured economist of...
We examine the patterns and correlates of the productivity gap between male-owned and female-owned firms for informal enterprises in India. Female-owned firms are on average 45 per cent less productive than male-owned firms, with the clearest...
This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the gendered dimensions of employment and mental health among urban informal-sector workers in India. First, we find that men’s employment declined by 84 percentage points post-pandemic relative...
The Indian labour market is characterized by a high level of informality, with large numbers of workers in poorly paid ‘lower-tier’ informal jobs, and somewhat better paid ‘upper-tier’ informal jobs, which do not have the same benefits and security...
We measure multidimensional poverty in India using National Sample Survey Organization data from 2014–15 to 2017–18. We use income, health, education, and standard of living to measure the multidimensional poverty index (MPI). The MPI headcount...
Policy makers seeking inclusive growth frequently face the developer’s dilemma between prioritizing structural transformation, which is potentially...
The impact of childbirth on the labour market participation of women has been discussed extensively in the context of developed countries, constraints on mothers’ labour market participation and earnings being characterized as the ‘motherhood penalty...
How does informal economic activity respond to increased financial inclusion? Does it become more entrepreneurial? Does access to new financing options change the gender configuration of informal economic activity and, if so, in what ways and what...
We exploit the variation in admission cutoffs across colleges at a leading Indian university to estimate the causal effects of enrolling in a selective college on cognitive attainment, economic preferences, and Big Five personality traits. Using a...
We examine data for urban workers in the non-agricultural sector across three decades, 1983–2017, and find that earnings inequality increased during 1983–2004, was largely stable during 2004–11, and decreased during 2011–17. We explore whether...
A growing body of research shows that COVID-19 both reflects and exacerbates existing inequalities. However, there are significant gaps in this research area with respect to ‘horizontal’ or group-based inequalities in Global South countries. Lack of...
The contact hypothesis posits that having diverse neighbours may reduce one’s intergroup prejudice. This hypothesis is difficult to test as individuals self-select into neighbourhoods. Using a slum relocation programme in India that randomly assigned...
This paper analyses whether living in a locality with high crime against women affects the probability of early marriage—that is, marriage before the legal age of marriage of girls. We hypothesize that parents who perceive themselves to live in a...
This article provides empirical evidence on the impact of digitalisation on product upgrading in global value chains (GVCs). Analysis is done for a sample of Indian manufacturing GVC firms in the period 2001–15 from the firm-level database Prowess...
Most studies of intergenerational mobility focus on adjacent generations, and there is limited knowledge about multigenerational mobility—that is, status transmission across three generations. We examine multigenerational educational and occupational...
Based on primary data from India, this paper analyses the reasons underlying women’s low labour force participation. In developing countries, women engaged in unpaid economic work in family enterprises are often not counted as workers. Women are...
Part of Book Social Mobility in Developing Countries
This paper argues that new computer, smartphone, and universal ID technologies are reducing the incentives for political clientelism in the delivery of social programmes in India, especially by allowing party leaders to bypass local brokers to credit...
This paper examines whether digitalization can be a driver of ‘upgrading’ in global value chains and help developing countries move into higher value-added activities. In particular, the paper provides empirical evidence on the impact of digital...
The study aims at bridging gaps in both theoretical and empirical literature pertaining to multigenerational persistence. From a theoretical standpoint, it argues that parental altruism is influenced by social heterogeneity rather than income-based...
This article studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gendered dimensions of employment and mental health among urban informal-sector workers in Delhi, India.First, the study finds that men’s employment declined by 84 percentage points...
There is a dearth of evidence on the evolution of occupational health in the developing world and on the extent to which it has been influenced by (1) the pattern of structural transformation in these economies and (2) integration with global markets...
More than 960 million Indians will head to the polls in the world’s biggest election between April 19 and early June. The ruling Bharatiya Janata...
The shale gas revolution in the United States induced an unprecedented commodity boom across northwestern India. Leveraging population-based discontinuities in the contemporaneous roll-out of India’s national rural electrification scheme, we show...
Chapter in book: Wives and Widows at Work: Women’s Labour in Agrarian Bengal, Then and Now Compared with most other Indian states, women’s reported work participation rates have historically been low in West Bengal. This trend is more prominent in...
This study is positioned in two strands of literature—intersectionality and social mobility. It is the first to measure (dis)advantage at the individual level as an outcome of the intersectionality of identities and parental circumstances. By linking...
We examine how village-level social group dominance affects the educational and occupational mobility of minority and other social groups in rural India across multiple generations. We distinguish between upper caste and own-group dominance and...
Objective: To evaluate the quality of essential care during normal labour and childbirth in maternity facilities in Uttar Pradesh, India. Methods: Between 26 May and 8 July 2015, we used clinical observations to assess care provision for 275 mother...
This paper analyses the pattern and determinants of income risk and expectation in rural India. It uses unique primary survey data eliciting subjective income distribution from households in twelve villages in Bihar. It finds that expected future...
Part of Journal Special Issue Legal Empowerment and Group-Based Inequality
College is an important milestone in life that is believed to develop several aspects of an individual's human capital, broadly defined to include...
Despite the relevance of geographical disparities in India, earnings inequality occurs mostly within states, but with a broad range of variability in its levels. We investigate the sources of such variability using RIF decompositions of the...
We exploit the variation in the admissions process across colleges of a leading Indian university to estimate the causal effects of enrolling in a selective college on: cognitive attainment using scores on standardized university exams; behavioural...
This paper brings labour back into the literature on legal empowerment against poverty. Employing a historical lens, I outline three waves of legal movements. Each wave is distinguished by its timing, the state-level target, and the actors involved...
Developing countries face a trade-off between the twin objectives of structural transformation and inclusive growth. This is the ‘developer’s dilemma’. This study analyses the dilemma as it manifested itself in the Indian context, and identifies two...
What motivates individuals to become politicians? This is an important question in decentralized democracies, where local politicians play a key role in public goods provision. However, and in emerging economies, bureaucratic hurdles and...
Compared with most other Indian states, women’s reported work participation rates have historically been low in West Bengal. This trend is more prominent in rural areas. Historians have tried to explain this phenomenon in terms of culture and the...
The Indian labour market is characterized by a high level of informality, with large numbers of workers in poorly paid ‘lower-tier’ informal jobs, and somewhat better paid ‘upper-tier’ informal jobs, which do not have the same benefits and security...
This paper examines income mobility in developing countries. We start by synthesizing findings from the available evidence on relative mobility and poverty dynamics. We then describe evidence on economic mobility obtained via synthetic panels...
This study uses data collected from school students in Mumbai to investigate how they perceive subjective expected returns for different levels of education in an environment that includes labour market discrimination. We are particularly keen to...
The Omicron variant resulted in a third major wave of Covid-19 in India, with the number of cases exceeding those in the second wave, albeit causing...
This paper examines the impact of the 2001 Gujarat earthquake on age at marriage and other assortative matching outcomes. Using the 2004–05 wave of the India Human Development Survey and employing a difference-in-differences strategy, we document...
Developing countries will be predominantly urban by 2030. While urbanization is historically associated with development and broad-based social...
In this blog, the managing editor of the WIDERAngle shares his personal view on some of the most important —and potentially overlooked— work recently...
Studies on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic have demonstrated that poor women have been the worst sufferers in terms of pay cuts and job losses. Women are the hardest hit also at the household level. They have to bear the brunt of constrained...
This paper examines the impact of the Hindu Succession Act on married women’s time use in India. The Hindu Succession Act was amended between 1976 and 2005 by giving equal inheritance rights to women for inheriting property. To estimate the effect of...
The affirmative action policy in India came into practice because of the generations of struggle undergone by the untouchable castes and other backward classes, who were historically excluded from education and administration. As society changed, it...
Ela Ramesh Bhatt, the founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) of India, passed away on 2 November 2022. Known as the ‘gentle...
Using nationally representative data on employment and earnings, this paper documents a fall in wage inequality in India over the last two decades. It then examines the role played by increasing minimum wages for the lowest skilled workers in India...
We investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on income levels, poverty, and inequality in both the immediate aftermath and during the uneven recovery until December 2021 using high-frequency household survey data from India. We find that the...
Most studies of intergenerational mobility focus on adjacent generations, and there is limited knowledge about multigenerational mobility—status transmission across three generations. We examine multigenerational educational and occupational mobility...
Although formal education is often considered an indicator of political leaders’ quality, the evidence on the effectiveness of educated leaders is mixed. Besides, minimum education qualifications are increasingly being used as requirements for...
Credit constraints, a consequence of the widespread failure of credit markets in developing countries, are widely regarded as a key constraint to...
This paper documents the state of elementary education in India and China since the 1960s, key lessons for India from China’s shift in focus from ‘quantity’ to ‘quality’, and evidence-based guidelines for effective implementation of India’s New...
Part of Journal Special Issue What sustains informality
This paper provides a systematic review of quantitative literature investigating the success of affirmative action policies in addressing socio-economic inequalities between ethnic groups in education and employment. We focus on two of the most...
This study analyses whether living in a locality with high crime against women affects the probability of early marriage — that is, marriage before the legal age of marriage of girls. Using a nationally-representative longitudinal dataset and...
In recent decades, India has experienced rapid economic growth alongside radical affirmative action programs enacted since independence. This column...
When India became a republic in 1950, the economy was primarily agrarian, with three-fifths of output originating from agriculture. In the sixty years since independence, there has been a significant transformation of economic activity away from...
This paper examines multiple facets of New Delhi’s development cooperation with countries in Africa and argues that grassroots organizations in India that find innovative, low-cost technological solutions to developmental challenges can help...
Part of Book COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
The documented under-representation of marginalized groups in business ownership and the labour market is a concerning issue. This study explores how caste disparities in small-firm entrepreneurship impact on firm performance in India, focusing on...
‘The Number of Countries with High Inequality’ is the World Bank’s newest inequality indicator, one which it says will guide work on its agenda to...
This paper examines labour market inequality in Indonesia and India, using a common conceptual approach that draws on a job ladder framework. In the framework, I differentiate between self-employment and wage-informal employment and between formal...
We examine the nature of labour market inequality in Indonesia and India, using a common conceptual approach drawing from the job ladder framework. In the framework, we differentiate between self-employment and wage-informal and between formal, upper...
Drawing from two labour market experiments in rural India, we offer insights on the influence of survey design on the measurement of employment. The first experiment contrasts self-reported estimates of employment with proxy-reported estimates from...
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