21 May, 2025What 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
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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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Closing gender gaps in India: Does increasing women’s access to finance help?
Gender gaps in women’s economic opportunities – in the labour market and in entrepreneurship – have remained high in India. This article analyses the macroeconomic impact of closing gender gaps ...
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Purva Khera
- 16 August, 2019
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Inequality of opportunity among Indian women
Inequality of opportunity (IOp) in any society is that part of overall inequality which arises from factors beyond an individual’s control such as parental education, caste, gender, religion etc. Th...
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Akanksha Choudhary Gowtham Muthukkumaran Ashish Singh
- 05 August, 2019
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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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Gaurav Chiplunkar Jeffrey Weaver
- 24 June, 2019
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Traditional hierarchies and affirmative action in a globalising economy: Evidence from India
India has had a long-standing policy of affirmative action to address deep-rooted caste inequities and discrimination. This article compares successive age cohorts of three broad social groups – Sch...
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Ashwini Deshpande Rajesh Ramachandran
- 21 June, 2019
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Women’s work and fertility: Evidence from 200 years, 103 countries
The declining rates of female labour force participation in developing countries in the last two decades have led researchers to focus on the role of fertility in women’s labour supply decisions. Us...
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Daniel Aaronson Rajeev Dehejia Andrew Jordan Cristian Pop-Eleches Cyrus Samii Karl Schulze
- 03 June, 2019
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Where are the Indian female politicians?
When women win elections, does it inspire other women to run for candidacy or does it convince men to close ranks before the next election?
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Lakshmi Iyer
- 24 May, 2019
- Podcasts
The road not taken: Gender gaps along paths to political power
Research and policy efforts towards greater female political participation have largely focused on women’s voting behaviour, and their representation as elected public officials. However, there are ...
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Lakshmi Iyer Anandi Mani
- 21 May, 2019
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The 10% quota: Is caste no longer an indicator of backwardness?
The Constitution (124th Amendment) Bill 2019 seeks to provide for the advancement of “economically weaker sections”, through 10% reservation in government jobs and higher educational institutions ...
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Ashwini Deshpande Rajesh Ramachandran
- 17 May, 2019
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A family affair: Family members’ role in female employment decisions in India
A factor behind low female labour force participation in India is family members’ objection to women working. Based on an experiment in Karnataka, this article assesses whether employers can use lig...
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Joshua Dean Seema Jayachandran
- 13 May, 2019
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Sparking the #MeToo revolution in India: Delhi's 'Nirbhaya' case
In 2012, anger erupted on the streets of Delhi following the violent rape and murder of a young woman. This article estimates the impact of the incident on the reporting of crimes against women in Del...
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Akshay Bhatnagar Aparna Mathur Abdul Munasib Devesh Roy
- 29 April, 2019
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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...
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Soledad Prillaman
- 15 April, 2019
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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...
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Swati Narayan
- 03 April, 2019
- 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
- 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