The distributional consequences of political reservations
This article identifies and attempts to fill in the gaps in understanding the effects of reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs) in Panchayats. Using data from a state-wide census, multiple administra...
- Chinmaya Kumar M.R. Sharan
- 28 November, 2023
- Articles
Caste-based differences in self-help groups: Evidence from a rural livelihood programme
The National Rural Livelihood Mission aims to increase income and improve wellbeing for rural households. Using survey data from nine states in India, this article analyses the existence of caste-base...
- Chandan Jain Krishna Kejriwal Ritwik Sarkar Pooja Sengupta
- 05 August, 2022
- Articles
India’s Women’s Reservation Act: A big win for governance and beyond
Amidst debates about the recently passed women's reservation act and whether it will reduce gender disparities on the ground, Wattal and Gopalan summarise evidence from a number of randomised evaluati...
- Akshara Gopalan Urvashi Wattal
- 15 December, 2023
- Perspectives
The persistent gender gap in political participation in India
Women as citizens show up and speak up less in political spaces than men across the globe, particularly in lower- and middle-income countries. This article studies the persistent gender gap in politic...
- Soledad Prillaman
- 15 April, 2019
- Articles
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
Ancestral ecological endowments and contemporary sex ratios
About six million women are ‘missing’ each year from the world, of which 2 million are from India alone. This article finds that there are proportionately more missing women in regions with poorer...
- Gautam Hazarika Chandan Kumar Jha Sudipta Sarangi
- 15 March, 2019
- Articles
The anomaly of women’s work and education in India
There has been a decline in the female labour force participation rate and size of the female labour force in India in recent years. This article looks at this trend in conjunction with female educati...
- Surbhi Ghai
- 07 March, 2019
- Articles
Does a fear of violence affect female labour supply in India?
Working-age women in developing-country labour markets might be particularly sensitive to media reports on sudden incidents of violence against women, which can deter them from going out to work. Usin...
- Zahra Siddique
- 06 March, 2019
- Articles
Wheels of power: Long-term effects of the Bihar Cycle Programme
The Bihar government introduced a programme in 2006 to give cash to grade 9 girls to buy bicycles to go to school. Based on a survey undertaken in 2016, this article shows that beneficiaries were more...
- Shabana Mitra Karl Ove Moene
- 04 March, 2019
- Articles
Learning to cooperate in a culture of honour
In many parts of the world, we observe persistent dysfunction in learning to cooperate around common interests. Cultural differences – ideas of what constitutes an insult and what an appropriate res...
- Karla Hoff
- 20 February, 2019
- Articles
Using mobile phones to measure discrimination
One aspect of human well-being that has often been overlooked in survey research on low- and middle-income countries is the extent to which prejudice and discrimination diminish social welfare. This a...
- Diane Coffey Payal Hathi Nazar Khalid Nidhi Khurana Amit Thorat
- 09 January, 2019
- Articles
The macroeconomic benefits of gender diversity
The persistent gap between female and male labour force participation comes at a significant economic cost. This article argues that because women and men complement each other in the production proce...
- Christine Lagarde Jonathan D. Ostry
- 04 January, 2019
- Articles
Do urban politicians discriminate against internal migrants? Evidence from a nationwide field experiment in India
In recent decades, the global south has witnessed an explosive increase in the number of people relocating from rural to urban areas. Yet many migrants struggle to integrate into destination cities, f...
- Nikhar Gaikwad Gareth Nellis
- 31 December, 2018
- IGC Research on India
Taking other religions seriously: A comparative survey of Hindus in India
While the study of religion in political science has re-emerged as a growing field of inquiry in the past few decades, most research still focuses on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What religion is...
- Ajay Verghese
- 21 December, 2018
- Articles
Are women politicians good for economic growth?
There has been a phenomenal global increase in the proportion of women in politics in the last two decades, but there is no evidence of how this influences economic performance. This article investiga...
- Sonia Bhalotra
- 05 December, 2018
- Articles
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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
- Articles
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
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...
- Poulomi Chakrabarti
- 13 September, 2021
- Articles