Abstract
Indian economy has undergone important structural changes leading to high growth and poverty reduction in the last few decades. Rural economy has also registered significant changes during this period. Important among them is the growth in non-farm sector’s share in rural income and employment. This study intends to examine the following two questions: First, given the increasing importance of market-led non-farm sector in rural economy, do caste inequities of the rural economy continue to exist in non-agricultural economy? Second, does caste identity independently affect the non-farm sector inequities or because of the nature of its association with non-caste determinants? Findings show growing importance of non-farm sector in rural income generation and employment. However, the opportunities are not accessed equally. While regular salaried work and other transfers are increasingly accessed by forward groups (Brahmins, Others) and, OBCs there is high and increasing access to non-farm labour work among disadvantaged groups (SCs, STs, Muslims). Higher education emerges as the important factor in accessing better income opportunities in the rural non-farm sector. Inequality in higher education across caste groups may not allow the differences to disappear soon.
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Notes
India’s annual GDP growth rate has been higher than six per cent since 2002–2003, reaching up to 10% in 2010, and has been mostly above the average growth rate for the world since 1990s.
Official poverty line as accepted by the former Planning Commission is based on Tendulkar Methodology to calculate poverty line based on consumption expenditure data collected by the NSSO. Overall poverty rate has declined from above one-third of population to below one-fourth since 1990s.
The share of agriculture in GDP, which has been the dominant sector till 1970, has declined to mere 13% by 2014–2015.
Indian society was subdivided into four varnas: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra. A fifth segment was added later (though considered outside the caste system), often called Untouchables or Dalits.
Brahmins have been at the top of hierarchy, Dalit (or SCs) in the bottom, and other groups in the middle, with relative hierarchical position.
Sen (2000).
41,554 households and 42,152 households covered in round I and II, respectively, with 83% re-contact rate.
Dropped observations are 2.5% of IHDS1 rural household sample, 2.0% of IHDS2 household sample and 4.3% of panel household sample.
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An earlier version of the paper was presented at the 58th Annual Conference of ISLE. We are thankful to the conference participants and discussant for their valuable inputs. We also acknowledge comments from anonymous reviewer who have helped to greatly improve this paper. Usual disclaimer applies.
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Bera, M., Dubey, A. Structure and Changes in Household Income and Employment Across Social Groups in Rural India. Ind. J. Labour Econ. 63, 407–435 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41027-020-00215-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41027-020-00215-8