Search

This paper examines the comparative status of demographic, socioeconomic and health inequalities experienced by Muslim minority women in the Indian context. To do so, the socioeconomic conditions of Muslim women are compared with those of other minorities and majority religions by using the latest available data. The empirical analysis indicates that Muslim women are relatively educationally and economically backward in India. The socioeconomic condition of women of almost all other minorities is better off than that of Muslims. The paper also goes to examine the level of economic freedom enjoyed by the women of different minorities. It is found that the participation of women of the Muslim minority in household economic decision-making is relatively low. The findings of this study provide justification for the continuation of the provision of special treatment for Muslim women through government policies for improving the level of their socioeconomic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the returns to education for adult male workers in regular and casual wage employment using Indian national survey data at three points in time spanning almost two decades. Both standard and augmented Mincerian wage equations are estimated using a set of human capital measures and other controls after addressing the issue of potential selection bias. This paper finds that the returns to education are significantly different for the two types of workers—while casual workers face at best flat returns to education, the returns to education for regular workers are positive and U‐shaped with respect to education levels. There is also some evidence of a widening wage gap between regular workers with graduate and primary education that could possibly be a consequence of trade liberalization and other reforms pursued during the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing rates of school enrolment have changed childhoods in the global South, so that it is now the norm for children to attend at least some years of primary school. This paper explores the extent to which valuing of children as educational projects and outcomes may be displacing previous valuations of children as contributors to the domestic economy. The paper draws on qualitative interview data from Young Lives, a longitudinal study of children growing up in four developing countries, using a case study approach to explore the experiences of four children in rural Andhra Pradesh, India. The paper suggests that children are balancing expectations for the future with responsibilities to their families in the present, and concludes that the over-valuing of formal qualifications and the under-valuing of forms of work such as agriculture risk being internalised by children, leaving those who do not succeed feeling they are 'a waste'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nurses form the largest share of India's health workforce. This paper explores the relationship between nurses' pre-service education and labor market aspirations. It investigates supply-side factors shaping students' career plans and studies the influence that nurse training institutes have on students' transition into the workforce.Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 266 nursing students and training administrators at 42 training institutes was conducted in 2014 in two Indian states, Bihar and Gujarat. Piloted questionnaires were used to collect information on the cost and quality of training programs, the background of students, and their career aspirations. Descriptive analyses and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted.Results: A multivariate model on students' post-graduation plans indicated that students whose institutes provided training in non-technical skills, such as communication and teamwork, were less likely to aim for public sector employment upon completing their training. Similarly, students who joined their training institute because they believed it to be the best place to access job opportunities were less likely to have intentions to seek public sector jobs. Students attending institutes that organized job fairs were also more likely to want to study further or seek private sector employment rather than seeking public sector employment. On the other hand, studying in Bihar and belonging to historically disadvantaged social groups (deemed Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes by the Constitution of India) were factors positively associated with plans to seek public sector employment.Conclusions: This study helps explain some of the supply-side factors driving the preference for public sector employment among nurses in India by highlighting the influential role of caste, state-level characteristics, and training programs on nursing students' post-graduation plans. It demonstrates that the strong preference for government jobs among nursing students is linked to the limited role training institutes play in connecting students with other potential employers. In addition, the study indicates that training in non-technical skills, such as communication, makes students more open to pursuing private sector jobs and advanced training programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the1830s the colonial government in India became the agency for the promotion of ‘Western education’, that is, education that sought to disseminate modern, Western, rational knowledge through modern institutions and pedagogic processes. This paper examines a historical episode in which certain key categories of modern Western thought were pressed into service to explain a consequence of the dissemination of Western knowledge in colonial India. The episode in question was that of the alleged ‘moral crisis’ of the educated Indian, who, many argued, had been plunged into confusion and moral disarray following his exposure to Western knowledge in the schools and universities established by his British ruler. In the discourse of moral crisis, the knowledge being disseminated through Western education was simultaneously put to use in explaining an unanticipated effect of this education. How adequate was Western knowledge to explaining its own effects? More generally – for this paper is drawn from a larger study of how modern Western knowledge ‘travelled’ when transplanted to colonial India – what is the status of the knowledge we produce when we ‘apply’ the categories of modern Western thought in order to understand or explain India? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper revisits regression-based inequality decomposition, derives further theoretical results on the factor shares and applies them in an empirical setting. Noting that the approach based on Shorrocks and Fields is not directly applicable to an important welfare-based inequality index, namely Atkinson's inequality index, we generalise it to derive shares for this index. We also derive the asymptotic distribution of all share estimators for obtaining their standard errors necessary for drawing inference. Finally, we use our theoretical results to examine the major factors that contribute to income inequality in India. Our results show that education and household size are the two most dominant factors contributing to income inequality in both rural and urban areas, followed by employment status and regional differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the employment and unemployment panel data of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), this paper attempts to map the spatial and temporal dimension of skills and education profiles of India's workforce. After an assessment of India's employment challenge, this study analyses the changing pattern of skill distribution among Indian workers by their gender, location, type, regions and broad sectors of the economy. The paper draws on the emerging literature and presents its empirical data to outline the essential skill and educational characteristics of workers, and its variations across broad sectors of the economy at both the national and sub-national levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the role of non-cognitive skills like self-efficacy in explaining the education and employment aspirations and outcomes of adolescent and young women in Jharkhand, India. We find that self-efficacy is an important correlate of the educational and employment aspirations of these women, and ultimately, of their actual attainments. This suggests that such “hidden” forms of human capital may serve as critical targets for interventions aimed at altering young women’s educational and economic trajectories. We also examine factors that correlate with young women’s level of self-efficacy, and find that an “enabling” and supportive family and community environment appears to be important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complex stratification systems in India give rise to a multiplicity of social categories which often obscure the relative status of women and men within the more disadvantaged segments of the population. The focus of this study is on the situation of women in scheduled castes and tribes - groups which are referred to as 'weaker sections of people' and granted special safeguards and concessions under the Indian constitution. Women in these under-privileged groups are doubly disadvantaged: their minority group status interacts with India's patriarchal culture to produce deplorable living conditions. Drawing from both ethnographic and statistical sources, the paper presents a descriptive profile of scheduled caste and tribe women's status in Indian society. Using Indian Census data, the study documents extreme degrees of gender inequality among the scheduled groups. Findings indicate that relative to men, women in these groups have far more limited access to both educational and employment resources. This research also suggests that socioeconomic development serves to reduce the disadvantage of scheduled group women relative to men. Among the scheduled groups considered to be more developed according to standard indicators, findings indicate less gender inequality in education and employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Skill development has been a major policy agenda in several countries and there is a lot of emphasis on the promotion of vocational education and training (VET) programmes. This paper investigates the labour market outcomes of the vocationally trained population in India using the data from a nationally representative survey on employment and unemployment. We find that a large section of the population in the age group 15–59 years does not have any kind of formal training. Among the VET holders, a large share is accounted for by non-formal trainees. Quite a high proportion of formal trainees in the workforce remain unemployed reflecting underutilisation of human resource. We also examine the extent to which individuals’ training matches their occupational levels and find that overall about two-thirds of the trainees are employed in occupations related to the field of training. Further, we compare the returns to general secondary and vocational education streams using the standard earnings function accounting for the sample selection bias. Our findings show that the relative returns to vocational education is higher than that to general secondary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper studies the relationship between mothers’ employment and children’s schooling in India. Using the second National Family Health Survey, the results of a multilevel probit model show that the correlation between mothers’ employment and their children’s schooling is negative. Women in poorer households are more likely to work but, given the negative correlation, their additional income does not seem sufficient to enable children’s school attendance. A sensitivity analysis on wealth deciles shows that this negative relationship disappears in urban areas and becomes weaker in rural areas at the top wealth deciles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the use of decomposition exercises, this article estimates the relative contributions of different factors to inequality among Indian regular wage employees between 1993/94 and 2011/12. It also estimates the contributions of returns to factors and shares of factors determining inequality. The author finds that the single largest contributor among the regular wage workforce in India is access to higher education. However, institutional factors such as union membership and employment in the public sector also play important roles, indicating that inequality cannot be simply reduced to demographic or technical factors, but must also take into account the institutional structure of an economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the burden of food insecurity in India’s un-notified slums, using an SDG framework to identify correlates of food insecurity. A convenience sampling approach was employed in selecting 38 slums from 675 un-notified slums across four geographic zones. Ten percent of the households in each slum site were selected from each zone, and one household member was interviewed, based on their availability and fulfilment of the eligibility criteria. Eligible individuals included those aged 18 years and above, who were resident in the selected slums and provided consent. Individuals with mental or physical challenges were excluded. A total sample of 907 study participants were included. Results showed that 43% (n = 393) of the participants were food insecure. More than half were females (73%, n = 285), who had not completed any schooling (51%, n = 202). One-third (n = 128) resided in the Northern Region of Delhi. SDG-related predictors of food insecurity included: household educational level (SDG 4 Quality education) (p = 0.03), coverage of health service needs (SDG 3 Good health and well-being) (p = 0.0002), electricity needs (SDG 7 affordable and clean energy) (p<0.0001), and employment needs (SDG 8 Decent and economic growth) (p = 0.003). Having healthcare needs that were partially or fully met was equally associated with higher food insecurity: this could be attributed to high healthcare costs and the lack of federal subsidies in un-notified slums, collectively contributing to high out-of-pocket health costs. Failure to fully meet employment needs was also significantly associated with higher food insecurity. However, met needs for electricity, finance, women’s safety and satisfactory family relationships, were associated with lower food insecurity. Household predictors of food insecurity included: number of household members, and the presence of physically disabled household members. Necessary interventions should include connecting food insecure households to existing social services such as India’s Public Distribution System, and multi-sector partnerships to address the existing challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article evaluates gender inequalities in education and employment and examines their impacts on economic growth and human development in 15 major states of India. Although the overall gender gap has declined marginally due to reduced gender gaps in political empowerment and educational attainment, it has remained high due to huge gender gaps in other categories. India has attained gender parity in primary and upper primary education and has been moving towards gender equality in literacy. Gender equality in life expectancy has improved modestly at the cost of increasing gender disparity in infant mortality. Despite the increasing literacy rate and educational levels among women, the female labor force participation rate has been declining with increasing gender gaps in wage and income. Gender equalities in literacy and labor force participation rates have positive impacts on per capita income and human development. The results suggest the need for adopting policies to create conditions, which would allow both women and men to realize their full human potential. They also suggest that increasing investment in infrastructure and the social sector could play an important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of renewable energy sources that have great potential to give solutions to the longstanding energy problems of India has been considered. It has been stated that renewable energy sources are an important part of India's plan to increase energy security and provide new generation with ample job opportunities. India's plans to move towards green technology and address environmental concerns associated with the country and the world have been characterized. The peculiarities of the renewable energy education in India as a subject and as a specialized branch of engineering or science at different education levels in both governmentfunded and private institutes across India have been outlined. Science and engineering education system with detailed structure of the degree (undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and post-doctoral) course has been described. Comparative study of renewable energy education systems of other countries has been performed. It has been stated that currently in India science colleges offer undergraduate renewable energy course as BSc. (Renewable Energy) and Postgraduate level course (MSc) that are offered in different science institutes in the specialization of Renewable Energy, Energy Management, Energy Studies, Physics (Energy) etc. Doctoral and postdoctoral research is offered by a few science institutions in India which is a more focused research (issues) in solar energy or wind energy field. The process of studying in a number of Indian institutes specializing in renewable energy has been described and compared to other world educational establishments of Spain, Mexico, and Russia. Advantages and disadvantages of renewable energy specialization education have been defined. It has been determined that there is an immediate need for the development of requisite demonstration which should be provided at appropriate levels in which both on-job as well as traditional training in these areas should be given to the expansive audience with the aid of modern andragogy techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an effort to analyze the influence of education and occupation as critical determinants of smokeless tobacco use among adult males in India and its selected states. Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) India 2009–10 data are used to analyze the prevalence of smokeless tobacco use among adult males aged 15 years and above (N = 33,767) by their different education and occupational status. Bivariate and multivariate (Cox proportional survival model) analyses are carried out to assess the linkages of education and occupation with use of smokeless tobacco among adult males. The study suggests that the majority of Indian men are usingkhaini(18%) andgutkha(13%) (the local terms used for smokeless tobacco). Further, it is observed that education and occupation remain the two important critical predictors of smokeless tobacco use among men. A greater percentage of young men with no education from rural areas use smokeless tobacco (44.3%) than their counterpart group from urban areas. The socioeconomically disadvantaged states, noticeably the east and central (4.992 and 3.218;p < .001) states, record higher prevalence of smokeless tobacco use than other states. Considering the high prevalence of smokeless tobacco use among illiterate and socioeconomically deprived youths, there is an urgent need to sensitize the issue. More concrete efforts to generate awareness on the ill effects of tobacco use among the illiterate and those who are employed in low-profile occupations are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder whose consequences are influenced socially and culturally, especially in India. This review (second of the two part series) was carried out to understand the social impact and economic burden to develop comprehensive program for control and prevention of epilepsy. Epilepsy is known to have adverse effect on education, employment, marriage, and other essential social opportunities. Economic burden associated with epilepsy is very high with treatment and travel costs emerging as an important contributing factor. A vicious cycle between economic burden and poor disease outcome is clear. There is no significant change in the perception, stigma, and discrimination of epilepsy across the country despite improvement in educational and social parameters over the time. The huge treatment gap and poor quality of life is further worsened by the associated comorbidities and conditions. Thus, a multidisciplinary response is needed to address the burden and impact of epilepsy which calls for an integrated and multipronged approach for epilepsy care, prevention, and rehabilitation. Service delivery, capacity building, integration into the existing program, mobilizing public support, and increasing public awareness will be the hallmarks of such an integrated approach in a public health model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given urban areas contribute to more than 65 % of India's gross domestic product (GDP), the sustainability of the rapid 8-9 % GDP growth India has experienced in the last decade, is dependent to a large extent on urban areas. With migration being one of the important factors contributing to the growth of urban population, we attempt to understand whether it is push (out of the rural area) or pull (toward the urban area due to its perceived benefits) which explains migration in India, taking the case of Bangalore, which has one of the largest proportions of in-migrants to total population. An examination of these factors is done using a primary survey of migrants in Bangalore. Using a probit model, we find that the lower the level of education of the migrant, the greater the importance of the push factors whereas with increasing level of education of the migrant, pull factors become more important in migration. Women are more likely to be 'pulled' toward urban areas. We find migrants from within Karnataka are 'pushed'. This suggests that nonfarm employment opportunities have to be increased, rural infrastructure improved, and the development of small and medium towns encouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on fourteen months' ethnographic field research in western Uttar Pradesh among educated Dalit (ex-untouchable) and Muslim young men, this article uncovers a crisis in educated people's access to salaried employment in rural north India. Against the grain of other studies of youth underemployment in postcolonial settings, we argue that educated Muslim and Dalit young men have reacted to their exclusion from secure white-collar occupations by embracing education as a form of embodied cultural distinction rather than seeking out“traditional,”“indigenous,” or“village-based” identities. Young men elaborate on education's value with reference to a system of differences between moral, civilized, developed“educated” people and immoral, savage, underdeveloped“illiterates.” Education has become a type of discursive“scaffold” upon which people display their ideas about morality, development, and respect. These narratives are compromised and contested and highlight differences in the ability of Muslim and Dalit young men to maintain an image of themselves as educated people. The extraordinary durability of local ideas of development (vikās) in the face of poor occupational outcomes and local variations in young people's ability to maintain development identities point to the importance of the cultural production of education as a field for comparative geographical enquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the abstracts of several studies on planning. "The Rise (and Decline) of American Regional Science: Lessons for the New Economic Geography?," by Trevor J. Barnes; "Contesting Visions: Hybridity, Liminality and Authorship of the Chandigarh Plan," by Nihal Perera; "Waiting for Geography," by Marcus A. Doel.