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Social Identity

Caste inequalities within socio-religious groups: Evidence from Uttar Pradesh

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A signal to end child marriage: Evidence from Bangladesh

Child marriage remains common even where female schooling and employment opportunities have grown. Based on a field study in Bangladesh, this article seeks to experimentally evaluate the impact of a f...

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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...

  • Symposium

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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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...

  • Articles

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...

  • Articles

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...

  • 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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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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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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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...

  • 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...

  • 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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How dowry influences household decisions in rural India

It is widely believed that Indian parents start saving for dowry as soon as a daughter is born. In the second of a two-part series on dowry in rural India, this article examines how dowry influences h...

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India’s ‘missing girls’: Women’s education and declining child sex-ratios

Although women’s education has been proposed as a solution to the persistent issue of ‘missing girls’ in India, studies have reached contradictory conclusions on the impact of female education o...

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Lineage norms and women’s political participation

While reservation for local political representation of women has made major headway, this has not addressed the structural problems that prevent the full incorporation of women into politics. Based ...

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Most Popular Social Identity Posts

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...

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Impact of the two-child limit for local politicians

Some Indian states debar individuals with more than two children from contesting local elections. This column finds that while the law has significantly reduced fertility among the general population...

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Prevalence and evolution of dowry in India

Dowry payments are an important part of household finances in India, typically exceeding a year of earnings. This article analyses data from an all-India sample of over 70,000 marriages to document fa...

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