What is behind the recent rise in women’s workforce participation?
Women’s workforce participation in India increased from 32% in 2022-23 to 37% in 2023-24, with the rise concentrated in rural areas. This article demonstrates that this significant change may be dri...
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Priyanshi Chaudhary
Avanindra Nath Thakur
13 May, 2025
- Articles
Can conversations about minorities reduce discrimination? Evidence from anti-transgender discrimination in Chennai
Discriminatory behaviour is known to adversely impact equity and efficiency in a range of economic and social domains. In the context of discrimination against transgender people in urban Chennai, thi...
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Duncan Webb
19 July, 2024
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How class and caste influence school choice
Families' socioeconomic status impacts how parents make decisions regarding their children's education. Taking into account the interplay of caste and class, this paper finds that when families are to...
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Introduction to e-Symposium: Urbanisation, gender, and social change in north India
Urbanisation in India is reshaping established social and economic patterns of behaviour, in ways that scholars are yet to fully comprehend. India’s rapid urbanisation invites several pressing quest...
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Devesh Kapur
Neelanjan Sircar
Milan Vaishnav
06 December, 2021
- Symposium
Empowering women through participatory theatre
Twenty-nine percent of women in India report having suffered intimate-partner violence. Based on a field study involving 92 villages in the state of West Bengal, this article shows that community-base...
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Karla Hoff
Jyotsna Jalan
Sattwik Santra
25 November, 2021
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Inter-gender and intra-gender gaps in land ownership in India
While women’s landownership is recognised as a key indicator of their economic empowerment, there are no detailed estimates of how many and which women own land in India. Analysing longitudinal data...
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Bina Agarwal
Pervesh Anthwal
Malvika Mahesh
24 November, 2021
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Do promises work? Assessing long-term benefits of ‘Apni Beti Apna Dhan’ programme
During 1994-1998, the state government of Haryana ran a conditional cash transfer programme to address the issue of child marriage: at the time of a daughter’s birth, parents from marginalised secti...
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Shreya Biswas
Upasak Das
03 November, 2021
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Is OBC reservation good for development?
The affirmative action debate has always been riddled by the question of merit versus social justice, and discussions around having a caste census have once again reignited the controversy around rese...
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Poulomi Chakrabarti
20 October, 2021
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Does access liberalise gender norms around phone use for rural women?
Despite improved connectivity, deep-rooted gender norms continue to shape access to and use of mobile technologies by women in India. This note discusses preliminary findings from a study, which sugge...
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Giorgia Barboni
Natalia Rigol
Simone Schaner
Natalie Theys
13 October, 2021
- Notes from the Field
Measuring caste inequality across Indian states
Although recent research on inequality shows that upper castes have the highest levels of material well-being, there is a wide variation in caste inequality across India. Measuring three forms of cast...
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Poulomi Chakrabarti
13 September, 2021
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Do quotas in public sector employment for disadvantaged groups enhance their welfare?
Affirmative action policies remain controversial with many arguing that benefits come at the expense of those excluded, and accrue disproportionately to the elite in disadvantaged groups. Analysing na...
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Nishith Prakash
10 September, 2021
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Is it safe? Threat of sexual violence and women’s decision to work
Despite significant improvements in women's educational attainment and reduced fertility rates, India’s female labour force participation (FLFP) remains among the lowest globally. Using nationally r...
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Tanika Chakraborty
Nafisa Lohawala
06 September, 2021
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Countering violence against women with awareness creation and self-defence training
The 2019 National Crime Records Bureau report shows a 7.3% increase, compared to 2018, in violence against women, with one in three women being subject to physical, emotional, or sexual violence. In t...
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Chitwan Lalji
Debayan Pakrashi
Sarani Saha
Soubhagya Sahoo
20 August, 2021
- Perspectives
The escalating financial burden of child births
Data from the 2019-20 National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 show that in several states, the proportion of institutional deliveries remain below the national average, with high out-of-pocket expendit...
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Prem Shankar Mishra
T.S. Syamala
30 July, 2021
- Perspectives
Evolution of dowry in rural India: Evidence from 1960-2008
Despite being illegal since 1961, dowry continues to be a widespread phenomenon in rural India. In the first of a two-part series, this article tracks the evolution of dowry during 1960-2008 across st...
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S Anukriti
Sungoh Kwon
Nishith Prakash
01 July, 2021
- Articles
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Hindu-Muslim fertility differentials in India: An update
Building on past research, Saswata Ghosh and Pallabi Das estimate the state- and district-level fertility differentials between Hindus and Muslims using data from the latest round of the NFHS. They sh...
Pallabi Das
Saswata Ghosh
18 April, 2023
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A division of labourers: Caste identity and efficiency in India
Castes in India are closely associated with certain occupations and determine the jobs done by millions. This study uses a new dataset to show that a large proportion of workers still work in their ca...
Guilhem Cassan
Daniel Keniston
Tatjana Kleineberg
18 November, 2022
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Sex ratios and religion in India and South Asia
In South Asia, low child sex ratios are increasingly an isolated Indian phenomenon. Within India, child sex ratios are ‘normal’ among Christians and Muslims but much lower among Hindus, Sikhs, and...
Swati Narayan
03 April, 2019
- Articles