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The complexity of female empowerment interventions

  • Perspectives

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...

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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...

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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...

  • Perspectives
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What explains the low and stagnating female labour force participation in India?

In this article, Stephan Klasen gives an overview of the existing evidence on the supply- and demand-side drivers of female labour force participation in India.

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The battle for backwardness

Ahead of the assembly elections in Punjab, the state government granted ‘Other Backward Classes’ status to Rajput Sikhs. In this article, Rohini Somanathan contends that caste reservations first ...

  • Perspectives

Women's empowerment and changing social norms: Persistent effects of a one-time targeted in-kind transfer in India

The project explored how a targeted social reform - the “Cycle program” in Bihar - affected the aspirations and behaviour of young women. The Cycle program was successful in increasing enrolment i...

  • IGC Research on India

What explains the decline in female labour force participation in India?

It is often argued that female labour force participation is declining in India due to rising incomes that allow more women to stay at home, which is the preferred household choice in a predominantly...

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Why are older women missing in India? The age profile of bargaining power and poverty

The ratio of women to men is particularly low in India relative to developed countries. It has recently been argued that close to half of these ‘missing’ women are of post-reproductive ages. What...

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Courting women's votes: What does this mean for women?

In the recent state assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, political parties targeted women voters with specific handouts and proposed policies such as alcohol bans. This column contends that while the in...

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Women and the Indian job market: Glass ceiling or sticky floor?

The gender wage gap among regular wage and salaried workers in India was 49% in 2009-10. This column finds the bulk of the gap is due to discrimination against women in the job market, rather than di...

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The right to shelter: An evaluation of the land transfer programme to Mahadalits in Bihar

This project follows the implementation of a land distribution scheme towards Mahadalit households in Bihar, the most oppressed of the Scheduled Castes in the state. It aims to describe which Mahadali...

  • IGC Research on India

Caste quotas in politics and development outcomes

To guarantee the political inclusion of the historically marginalised groups, electoral quotas have been in place for them in India since 1950. Analysing the constituency-level impact of quotas for S...

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Maternal mortality and gender prejudice

While maternal mortality has fallen sharply in the last decade, it remains unnecessarily high at about 800 deaths a day worldwide. Moreover, there is enormous variation in levels and rates of decline ...

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How has land acquisition impacted dalits? A case study from Maharashtra

Land ownership in Indian villages is inextricably linked to caste, with dalits owing little or no land. Based on a survey in Maharashtra, this column assesses the impact of land acquisition and subse...

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Missing unmarried women

The developing world has notoriously low sex ratios, a phenomenon that has been described as ‘missing women’. This is believed to be driven by parental preferences for sons, sex-selective abortion...

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Bipasha Maity

Ashoka University

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Sutirtha Bandyopadhyay

Indian Institute of Management Indore

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Deputy Managing Editor, I4I

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Anamika Priyadarshini

Centre for Catalyzing Change (C3)

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Madhu Joshi

Centre for Catalyzing Change (C3)

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Shubha Bhattacharya

Centre for Catalyzing Change (C3)

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Arnab Mukherji

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

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Asian Development Bank & Indian Institute of Manag

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Most Popular Social Identity Posts

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...

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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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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...

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