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Taking data from the 'India Youth Survey: Situation and Needs' the paper examines intergenerational educational mobility for young females (vis-à-vis their mothers) in India. The paper uses transition/mobility matrices and mobility measures widely used in the literature on intergenerational mobility for the examination. The overall intergenerational educational mobility among the young females in India is about 0.69 (the upper limit being 1). The upwards component of the overall intergenerational educational mobility is 0.55 (that is, nearly four-fifth of the overall). Also, the intergenerational educational mobility is slightly higher in the 'Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SC/ST)' compared to the 'Other Backward Castes (OBC)' as well as 'Others' castes. But the upward mobility is substantially higher in the 'Others' caste group compared to SC/STs. The upward mobility among the OBCs is higher than that of SC/STs but lower than that of the 'Others' category. Also, the overall mobility as well as upward mobility is higher in urban areas. Moreover, there are large inter-state variations with the economically and demographically poorer states having substantially lower overall as well as upward mobility than the economically and demographically advanced states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the household asset dynamics in India as well as Indian rural States. The paper contributes to the empirical analysis of poverty trap by investigating the presence of one potential poverty trap to simultaneous poverty trap. The paper uses the India Human Development Survey for the year 1993 and 2005. We use the local polynomial regression with Epanechnikov kernel weights to test the existence of multiple or single equilibrium in asset poverty dynamics. Moreover, we use the partial linear mixed model to test the impact of illiteracy trap and under-nutrition trap on asset dynamics process. Across all the States we find only single dynamic asset equilibrium for rural households. However the nature of the asset dynamics varies from one state to another. We find that, in most of the States, asset accumulation does not take place and welfare dynamics is very poor in rural areas. Further, we find under-nutrition trap uniformly affect the asset accumulation in most of the States. However an illiteracy trap affects the asset level heterogeneously over the income and regional distribution. We find the most deprived States (Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh) have the multiple poverty trap compared to richer States. Our result implies that asset dynamics of the household varies in the long term according to the types of traps. Government and policy makers should take pointed policy and programme based on whether the poor are trapped and in what ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on educational attainments have tended to focus on attainments at a specific level of education. The change in disparities in attainment over the educational life cycle, however, has been neglected in literature-in India, for instance, the only exceptions are Vaid () and Desai and Kulkarni (). This paper uses unit level National Sample Survey data (2004-2005) to examine gender disparities at different educational levels up to the high school level. Bi-variate analysis of gender disparities computed using the Sopher-Kundu index indicates that although there are substantial gender disparities at lower levels of education, this gets reversed at higher levels in several states. At the all-India level, too, in recent years, a reversal of disparity may be observed in urban areas. Econometric analysis using the variable parameter variant of the generalized ordered logit model reveals that robustness of females increase over the educational life cycle, though disparity remains, after controlling for socio-economic traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses household level data from National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) of India, the 55th (1999–2000) and the 61st (2004–05) rounds, to show that even with a significant wage incentive for schooling of urban children, the school drop out rate and child labour incidence are not small over this period. The parents’ level of education plays an important role in reducing this tendency; thus establishing the linkage between social and human capital outcomes in the family. We also look at the incidence of harmful and manual occupations among the child labour. Mother’s education appears as the more important factor in the recent round in curbing the manual work incidences; supporting earlier findings that women’s empowerment (one important indicator of which would be female educational level) is indeed becoming instrumental in increasing parental awareness. Using a pooled data set, we have also analysed the changes in the impact of parental education on these decisions between 1999–2000 and 2004–05. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]