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Macro-level studies on intergenerational mobility among women in India suggests that, there is a need to further probe certain excluded communities that have a higher likelihood of persistence of educational status among women through micro-level studies. The present study investigates the extent and drivers of high/low intergenerational educational mobility among young women (vis-à-vis their mothers) belonging to the weavers' community of Varanasi, India. Using transition/mobility matrices and mobility measures, along with qualitative methods, the paper builds on a mixed-methods study conducted among 364 households of weavers' community from Varanasi. The qualitative data includes a total of 8 respondents with 5 KIIs and 3 IDIs. The study shows that the overall intergenerational educational mobility among women (vis-à-vis their mothers) from the weavers' community of Varanasi is 0.30 and there is no downward mobility. The qualitative findings further highlight various reasons enabling or preventing high educational mobility in the given context. In conclusion, the paper illustrates several micro-level issues and disparities in intergenerational educational mobility that are not clearly evident through the macro-level studies and further helps in making informed policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outcome of economic growth is visualised as the well-being of citizens or human well-being (HWB). However, it has been a great challenge to measure HWB. Though there are known reasons for considering GDP and its growth as a measure of overall development and progress of nations, yet mostly it is being used as a gospel indicator to compare nations and design appropriate policies. This paper is an effort to develop a comprehensive adjusted GDP to measure HWB through secondary data for thirty years (1990–91 to 2019–20) in India. We make thirty-five adjustments to net national income (NNI) to compute the adjusted national income (ANI) index based on the system analysis approach. The empirical findings show that the gap between NNI and ANI has been growing over time, and the ANI index shows an increasing trend. Through the analysis it is suggested that economic growth should be focused only if it improves HWB (full or partial). The paper attempts to make intervention into policy shift for improving HWB vis-à-vis happiness of people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While India is entering the period of demographic dividend, female labour participation rates remain very low. This paper aims to provide the very first labour force projections for India and its regions up to the year 2060. Projections are achieved using a discrete-time microsimulation model in which changes in population size and composition come from the interaction between demographic characteristics, educational attainment, and secular tendencies. Labour force participation rates are estimated at the individual level using personal characteristics as predictors. Results show that under constant labour force participation rates, the labour force dependency ratio (non-workers/workers) is very unlikely to attain favourable levels, which compromises the potential demographic dividend that the country could gain from its favourable age-structure. At the subnational level, the forecast yields the most favourable dependency ratio in 2060 in the regions that combine both a low-age dependency ratio and a higher participation of women. Results moreover suggest that female labour force participation is a better driver of the labour force dependency ratio than the age composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, despite heavy constitutional protection, due to caste-based discrimination, millions of residents are still struggling to access their basic rights such as good food, quality of education, merit-based employment and basic living conditions. This paper illustrates the role of marginality (for more details please, see Braun and Gatzweiler 2014) in determining the accessibility of social capital and its functions to sustain basic needs in old-age. The coverage on discrimination and social hierarchy are some of the significant criterions in which functions of social capital are unproductive and further blocks the opportunities of adaptability in the later years. The paper addresses the issues of living arrangements and financial security among the elderly population. In conclusion, it recommends promotion of institutional care, pension protection and social safety measures for the creation of supportive environment for elderly population across all sections of the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an analysis of the subjective well-being of women relative to men in low-income urban households in India. Education and employment are pathways to greater financial well-being which is presumably of great salience to poor populations. However, either or both of these may increase aspirations. The social norms that restrict the autonomy of women may mute the impact of education and employment in a way that does not happen to men. To address this hypothesis, the paper uses primary data from a survey of over 1000 respondents across slums in Delhi. The paper finds that education and employment does reduce the well-being of women relative to men. We show that these gender varying correlations are robust to omitted variables bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, financial well-being has received considerable attention from researchers and policymakers as an indicator of financial health in the aftermath of financial shocks. Additionally, financial inclusion has been a priority for developing countries in their efforts towards poverty alleviation and bringing vulnerable populations into the mainstream financial system. Moreover, the shift in digital technologies and financial services has overcome access and usage barriers through the acquisition of digital financial literacy. This paper develops novel multidimensional indices and investigates the relationship between financial well-being, financial inclusion, and digital financial literacy. The study utilizes data from InterMedia's Financial Inclusion Insight (FII) 2016 Survey conducted in India. The results indicate that both financial inclusion and digital financial literacy have a significant positive impact on financial well-being. However, considering the potential endogeneity bias, instrumental variable 2SLS regression reveals that financial inclusion plays the most crucial role in defining financial well-being. Our findings help policymakers recognize the importance of demand-side financial inclusion and digital financial literacy in promoting financial well-being, which may be achieved through robust financial and digital literacy programs. Additionally, the study contributes to the financial well-being literature by incorporating essential attributes of financial inclusion and digital financial literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to analyses the relationship between educational expansion and schooling inequality in India across states and over the age cohort. The focus of the paper is to verify the inverted-U shaped relationship between the mean and dispersion of schooling. The evidence of an inverted-U shaped relationship between the mean and dispersion of schooling is found when dispersion is measured in terms of standard deviation which indicates that as the average level of schooling increases, educational inequality first increases, and, after reaching a peak, starts declining in latter phases of educational expansion. The turning point occurs when average year of schooling is about 7 years. The same inverted-U shaped relation is not observed when inequality in schooling is measured in terms of Gini-coefficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The policy and practice link in conducting the disciplinary proceedings is pertinent. The primary goal of this manuscript is to contrast India's approach to government employee discipline with that of eight other advanced nations. The gap between policy and practice in disciplinary proceedings involving accused employees is critically examined in the paper. Nonetheless, the main focus of this research is to investigate how unjust proceedings have affected society. With the help of real-time forensics, this article evaluates the gap between the employee suspension policy and practice. The forensics divulges the abuse of power in the disciplinary process sufficient to compel this article to critically highlight the adverse impacts of the detrimental practice on society. Informed personal interviews with the stakeholders (N = 34) reveal that the employee suspension practice deviates from the policy. Employee suspension evolved as a "state-sanctioned oppression", a "cruel joke to unemployment", and a "safe instrument to screen the offence of the powerful". The two significant findings of the study are, firstly, faulty disciplinary practice increasing social injustice, unemployment and resultant youth violence, and secondly, usage of suspension as an instrument to suppress or screen the traces of offence. Relying on the definitions provided in the verdicts of Indian courts, the manuscript calls for a revisit to the practice in the context of misconduct, malpractice, and victimization. We choose research areas that have not received much attention and create an agenda for the future to decrease the discrepancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trickle-down has been addressed, so far, using income-based measures of inequality and poverty. However concerns over the inequality in access to other dimensions important for quality of life remains. I revisit trickle-down using the Alkire and Foster (J Public Econ 95(7-8), 2011) class of measures to estimate multidimensional poverty in India. Using NSS data estimates are presented for the 16 major states and are compared to income-based measures. Adding dimensions in poverty measurement results in the reversal of several income-based conclusions about poverty across regions. The paper also finds that contrary to income-based findings, Muslims are less poor than Hindus under the multidimensional criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking data from the 'India Youth Survey: Situation and Needs' the paper examines intergenerational educational mobility for young females (vis-à-vis their mothers) in India. The paper uses transition/mobility matrices and mobility measures widely used in the literature on intergenerational mobility for the examination. The overall intergenerational educational mobility among the young females in India is about 0.69 (the upper limit being 1). The upwards component of the overall intergenerational educational mobility is 0.55 (that is, nearly four-fifth of the overall). Also, the intergenerational educational mobility is slightly higher in the 'Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SC/ST)' compared to the 'Other Backward Castes (OBC)' as well as 'Others' castes. But the upward mobility is substantially higher in the 'Others' caste group compared to SC/STs. The upward mobility among the OBCs is higher than that of SC/STs but lower than that of the 'Others' category. Also, the overall mobility as well as upward mobility is higher in urban areas. Moreover, there are large inter-state variations with the economically and demographically poorer states having substantially lower overall as well as upward mobility than the economically and demographically advanced states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the household asset dynamics in India as well as Indian rural States. The paper contributes to the empirical analysis of poverty trap by investigating the presence of one potential poverty trap to simultaneous poverty trap. The paper uses the India Human Development Survey for the year 1993 and 2005. We use the local polynomial regression with Epanechnikov kernel weights to test the existence of multiple or single equilibrium in asset poverty dynamics. Moreover, we use the partial linear mixed model to test the impact of illiteracy trap and under-nutrition trap on asset dynamics process. Across all the States we find only single dynamic asset equilibrium for rural households. However the nature of the asset dynamics varies from one state to another. We find that, in most of the States, asset accumulation does not take place and welfare dynamics is very poor in rural areas. Further, we find under-nutrition trap uniformly affect the asset accumulation in most of the States. However an illiteracy trap affects the asset level heterogeneously over the income and regional distribution. We find the most deprived States (Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh) have the multiple poverty trap compared to richer States. Our result implies that asset dynamics of the household varies in the long term according to the types of traps. Government and policy makers should take pointed policy and programme based on whether the poor are trapped and in what ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides Indian evidence on sub-national PPPs that point to considerable spatial price heterogeneity within the country, based on Indian National Sample Survey (NSS) data. The prices of various commodities have been generated from the household specific unit values obtained from the information on expenditures and quantities from the NSS unit records. This paper shows that the CPD model, proposed in the cross country context, can be adapted to the household context to estimate spatial prices in the intra country context. The proposed CPD based model is shown to be formally equivalent to certain well known fixed weight price indices under certain parametric configurations. The empirical contribution includes a systematic comparison between the spatial price indices from alternative models, namely the CPD and utility based models, and the result that the utility based methods point to a much greater extent of spatial price heterogeneity than is suggested by the CPD type models. The results also record the sensitivity of the spatial price indices to the choice of commodities in the utility based approach. The pairwise comparison of estimates suggests that commodity selection may be more important than model selection in its impact on the spatial price estimates, though the latter is important as well. The study provides estimates of rural-urban differentials in spatial price indices that suggest some interesting differences between the constituent states. The results make a strong case for further research on the topic of sub-national PPPs in the context of large heterogeneous countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rationale of this study is to bring in a new area of poverty measurement based on household's access to basic assets from across Indian States. The major drawback of the average income based measure of poverty is that it is unable to distinguish between the structural and stochastic nature of poverty. This paper applies the asset based framework to poverty to distinguish the relationship between structural and stochastic poverty. The paper has used data from the India Human Development Survey 2005. The results indicate the importance of asset formation for long term poverty reduction. There is a need for targeting pointed policies towards the identified structural poor and stochastic non-poor as they are the most vulnerable and need asset building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While existing indices of gender equality measure the role of women's status and position, they inadequately contextualize the broader construct of patriarchy, a social system that underlies many gender inequitable practices. An index capturing patriarchy may afford increased understanding of this social system, and may serve to complement other gender equality indices. This paper involves the development and testing of a novel composite measure, the India Patriarchy Index, to quantify the social and ideological construct of patriarchy using empirical data on family structure and gender roles. Using data from India's National Family Health Survey, we develop an India Patriarchy Index to measure gendered social positioning in families based on sex by age, patrilocality, sex ratio imbalance among offspring, and gendered economic roles. Psychometric testing demonstrates good internal reliability and construct validity of this index, with validity indicated by its association with three gender equality indices used in India. Spatial and temporal analyses further indicate much state-level variation in India Patriarchy Index scores as well as slow change on this indicator over time, based on time trend analyses from 1992–93 to 2015–16. Results demonstrate the utility of the India Patriarchy Index to measure and track gender equality progress in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the determinants of stated individual support towards environmental action. The analysis is realized by means of an original Partial Least Squares Path model of Environmental Awareness-Social Capital-Action and it is based on survey data provided in the fifth wave of the World Values Survey (2005–2009) regarding 34.612 individuals from 42 different countries. Besides the global estimates obtained on the whole set of countries, the paper proposes a subsample analysis for developed and developing countries, as well as country analyses for four major economies: China, India, Germany and the United States. We find that environmental awareness and trust in not-for-profit organizations are important determinants of individual action in support of environmentally friendly policies. In general, trust in science and technology does not crowd-out individual support towards the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the convergence among four main approaches (monetary, capability, social exclusion and participatory) of identifying the poor and estimating poverty has been calculated based on data collected from Kesla block of Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh state in India. The results suggest that there are divergences among these methods indicting that one method cannot be substituted for others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Devising multi-pronged strategies for those highly prone to food insecurity in the future remains a challenge for food policymakers. This set of food-insecure households faces different kinds of shocks (economic, political, environmental, pandemic, personal, etc.), which render them vulnerable to food insecurity. This study identifies those who are vulnerable to food insecurity, and will be useful for policymakers to resolve food insecurity related challenges in crisis or no crisis periods on an ex-ante basis. This paper decomposes the total welfare loss resulting from vulnerability to food insecurity into components due to 'food poverty' (expected consumption of the current food secure falling below the food poverty line), and risk (variability of food consumption over time). The last term can be further decomposed into the aggregate (region or community-specific), and idiosyncratic (household or individual-specific) risks. The paper identifies the key determinants of the different components of vulnerability to food insecurity based on household consumption expenditure surveys conducted in rural India in 2004–05, 2009–10, and 2011–12. Expected utility-based measures, and pseudo-panel regression techniques were used to identify risk-prone households. The key findings are: idiosyncratic risk is the largest driver (a loss in the utility of almost 51%) as compared to the poverty and covariate shocks; states with poor Public Distribution System (PDS) performance are more susceptible, a rise in the price of staple food items increases the chances of food insecurity, gendered disparity persists over time, forward social and religious groups are more vulnerable, and finally a higher level of urbanization increases the exposure and sensitivity to shocks (like the spread of contagious diseases), disrupts the supply of food commodities from rural markets, loss in income, and increase in rural vulnerability to food insecurity. Our key policy suggestion is a mix of cash versus in-kind transfers to resolve rural food insecurity related issues, tend towards resiliency, and simultaneously tackle the triple burden of malnutrition and SDG-2 related goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The affirmative action policy for socially and economically backward communities in employment has been a debated issue in India. In this context, this paper aims to analyze the level of inequality by distinguishing between ‘circumstance’ and ‘effort’ factors in the Roemer’s framework on equality of opportunity. We measure inequality of opportunities due to two circumstances: caste and religion. Our empirical analysis, at state-level, utilizes a recent household survey data, which provides information related to efforts as well as circumstances of workers. The paper estimated inequality in the labour market and then decomposed it to know the circumstances that cause income inequality. Our estimates indicated that inequality and inequality of opportunity is substantially higher in India. Specifically, the outcome of our analysis evidently indicated that the socially backward communities do have economically disadvantageous position in some of the Indian states. However, the degree of circumstances based on inequality varies to a great extent among the states. Therefore, we suggest that the country does not need a nation-level affirmative action policy instead a state-level policy could be more appropriate as the intensity of the problem differ significantly among the Indian states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite remarkable progress in past few decades India's current maternal and child mortality levels fall significantly short to attain many of the targets of MDGs. The variation in attainments across and within regions has always been a crucial dimension of Indian concerns. The present paper takes a closer look at the spatial variation of maternal and child healthcare status in India by summarising a set of constituent indicators that are instrumental in nature, and result in debilitating outcomes for women and their newborn. Taking the stock of information generated by the third round of District Level Health and Facility Survey (DLHS-3) this paper adopts the Pena Distance Method to gauge the spatial variations. The states are classified first in terms of their MCH status in 2007-2008. At later stage intrastate disparities are captured by measuring rural-urban inequality, and inter-district disparity within states. Key results indicate that the overall state ranking is, to a significant extent, explained by the intrastate variations. However, the major contribution of this paper lies in quantifying the relative role of constituent indicators that are responsible for the existing disparities across and within state boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ratio-based prevalence and absolute headcounts are the two most commonly accepted metrics to measure the burden of various socioeconomic phenomenon. However, ratio-based prevalence, calculated as the number of cases with certain conditions relative to the total population, is by far the most widely used to rank burden and consequently for targeting, across different populations, often defined in terms of geographical areas. In this regard, targeting areas exclusively based on prevalence-based metric poses certain fundamental difficulties with some serious policy implications. Drawing the data from the National Family Health Survey 2015–2016, and Census 2011, this paper takes four indicators of child undernutrition in India as an example to examine two contextual questions: first, does the choice of metric matter for targeting areas for reducing child undernutrition in India? and second; which metric should be used to facilitate comparisons and targeting across variable populations? Our findings suggest a moderate correlation between prevalence estimates and absolute headcounts implying that choice of metric does matter when targeting child undernutrition. Huge variations were observed between prevalence-based and absolute count-based ranking of the districts. In fact, in various cases, districts with the highest absolute number of undernourished children were ranked as relatively lower-burden districts based on prevalence. A simple comparison between the two approaches—when applied to targeting undernourished children in India—indicates that prevalence-based prioritization may miss high-burden areas where substantially higher number of undernourished children are concentrated. For developing populous countries like India, which is already grappling with high levels of maternal and child malnutrition and poor health infrastructure along with intrinsic socioeconomic inequalities, it is critical to adopt an appropriate metric for effective targeting and prioritization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends a two-period overlapping generations model of endogenous growth in which associations between human capital, social capital, and health outcomes are critically examined for a low income country, India. If individuals with higher levels of human capital can build strong social ties and have more robust social networks, they are then less likely to have health problems and are therefore physically healthier. In an attempt to test the so-called relationship between the variables in question, a unique dataset, where micro-level data from the world values survey and regional-level macro data from the central statistics office of India were both utilised, was accessed. A three-equation model has been then estimated using the conditional mixed-process method in order to address endogeneity issues explicitly. Our estimation results provide important insights into the theoretical thesis in several ways. Firstly, human capital has a favourable impact on social capital, which in turn enhances self-reported health. Secondly, we provide a comparison of three main experiments: an increase in the share of public spending by region on education, social capital-enhancing activities, and health. The results confirm the positive effect of an increase in each form of government spending on outcome variables. Thirdly, the correlation coefficient between disturbances of these three equations turns out to be statistically significant, suggesting that there are unobserved factors, which can affect self-reported health, social capital and human capital variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes how to select a methodology to target multidimensionally poor households, and how to update that targeting exercise periodically. We present this methodology in the context of discussions regarding the selection of a targeting methodology in India. In 1992, 1997, and 2002 the Indian government identified households that are below the poverty line (BPL) and in updating the 2002 methodology, alternative methods have been proposed and vigorously debated. A fourth BPL method was published and a corresponding Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC), implemented. Using the third National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), this paper illustrates how a BPL targeting method using SECC variables might be calibrated to a multidimensional poverty measure. This paper compares the fit between a benchmark measure of multidimensional poverty and several plausible targeting methods to determine which method(s) approximate it-as well as related measures-most closely. We find a ten-item binary scoring method, which uses variables already available in the SECC questionnaire, provides a strong proxy. The emphasis of this paper is to illustrate how a particular targeting method can be justified, rather than to advocate any particular solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we have considered the issues concerning dynamic changes in HDI and its various components from a relative standpoint. The analysis of HDI mobility should entail directional movement introduced by Fields (in Distribution and development: a new look at the developing world. MIT Press, Cambridge, ). However, Fields' analysis was in the space of absolute values. Here, we will try to extend this exercise to the positional mobility index by considering the question of improvement and deterioration in relative positions. This requires the concept of partial mobility where mobility is judged from the viewpoint of a particular group. We then try to introduce directional changes in partial mobility through axiomatic framework. Finally, we provide an illustrative example from the Indian data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graduation model is an approach to social development that focuses on asset creation and sustained development. This model has widely accepted as an innovative strategy to address the issues of extreme poverty and deprivation. The present paper is the manifestation of a major intervention program implemented in the three States of India namely Assam, Bihar and West Bengal. The intervention package aimed to alleviate the extreme poverty, creation of assets and enhancement of other social development indicators. The participating households were chosen from the identified backward localities of the above mentioned States. The total number of households participated in the study were 750. The structured intervention program was delivered for 2 years. The various dimensions of poverty alleviation, self-sufficiency, asset creation and social development were addressed in the intervention program. Both quantitative and qualitative techniques were adopted for analyzing the pre and post-intervention phases. The result of the study indicates positive signs of graduation from poverty and deprivation. Significant improvements were evident in the household and income generating assets. The intervention yielded positive results in bringing changes in the habits of saving and attitudes towards the access to public facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the consumption expenditure data, National Sample Survey, 2009-2010, this paper test the hypothesis that the monthly per capita household health spending of elderly households is significantly higher than non-elderly households in India. The households are classified into three mutually exclusive groups; households with only elderly members (elderly households), households with elderly and non-elderly members and households without any elderly member. The health spending include the institutional (hospitalization) and non-institutional health expenditure of the households, standardized for 30 days. Descriptive statistics and a two part model are used to understand the differentials in health expenditures across households. Results indicate that the monthly per capita health spending increases with economic status, occupation, age and educational attainment of the head of the household. The monthly per capita health spending of elderly households is 3.8 times higher than that of non-elderly households. While the health spending accounts 13 % of total consumption expenditure for elderly households, it was 7 % among households with elderly and non-elderly members, and 5 % among non-elderly households. Controlling for socio-economic and demographic correlates, the per-capita household health spending among elderly households and among household with elderly and non-elderly members was significantly higher than non-elderly households. The health expenditure is catastrophic for poorer households, casual labourer and households with elderly members. Based on the finding we suggest to increased access to health insurance and public spending on geriatric care to reduce the out-of-pocket expenditure on health care in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given limited resource availability in a developing nation like India, faced with high incidences of crime, it is important to optimize on the resources spent in combating crime by channelling them to proper direction. This requires an understanding of the actual and overall level of crime across India. Our paper provides a complete understanding of the various indicators of violent crime and the determinants of these crimes in India using district level data for three census years, namely, 1981, 1991 and 2001. We construct three alternative crime-burden indices. Including a variable like voter turnout in state election at the district level, we document significant impact of public awareness to reduce and combat crime. The constructed crime burden index shows that states located in northern parts of India have more incidences of crime compared to states in the south. We also find that our estimated crime-burden indices tend to report in general a higher level of crime-burden than the average based index. This suggests controlling for the factors beyond population while constructing the aggregate crime-burden index for any country is essential. Our work although is limited to the Indian data, we however, believe that this can be easily applied to various other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using consumption expenditure data of the National Sample Survey 2004-2005, this paper estimates the size of elderly poor and tests the hypotheses that elderly households are not economically better-off compared to non-elderly households in India. Poverty estimates are derived under three scenarios-by applying the official cut-off point of the poverty line to household consumption expenditure (unadjusted), consumption expenditure adjusted to household size and consumption expenditure adjusted to household composition. Results show that an estimated 18 million elderly in India are living below the poverty line. On adjusting the consumption expenditure to household size and composition, there are no significant differences in the incidence of poverty among elderly and non-elderly households in India. This is in contrast to the notion that elderly households are better off than non-elderly households in India. Based on the findings, we suggest that the age dimension should be integrated into social policies for evidence based planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shrimp trawling represents an important fishing métier in South India, generating high levels of employment and economic value. It is also a contested métier, ostensibly contributing to environmental degradation and social inequality. This paper investigates the job satisfaction of crew members (captains and workers) on board the shrimp trawlers of Chennai (former Madras). Research took place in 2007 and 2008 (N = 137). Results suggest a general satisfaction with being in the fishery. However, a little over three-fifths of fishers said they would be willing to change fishing métier and about one-half said they would leave the occupation. About one-half also said they would not advise a young person to enter the occupation. The tendency to move away from the fishery is argued to reflect a growing pessimism about the future of the shrimp trawl fisheries, but also an increasing awareness of other economic opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on educational attainments have tended to focus on attainments at a specific level of education. The change in disparities in attainment over the educational life cycle, however, has been neglected in literature-in India, for instance, the only exceptions are Vaid () and Desai and Kulkarni (). This paper uses unit level National Sample Survey data (2004-2005) to examine gender disparities at different educational levels up to the high school level. Bi-variate analysis of gender disparities computed using the Sopher-Kundu index indicates that although there are substantial gender disparities at lower levels of education, this gets reversed at higher levels in several states. At the all-India level, too, in recent years, a reversal of disparity may be observed in urban areas. Econometric analysis using the variable parameter variant of the generalized ordered logit model reveals that robustness of females increase over the educational life cycle, though disparity remains, after controlling for socio-economic traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses household level data from National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) of India, the 55th (1999–2000) and the 61st (2004–05) rounds, to show that even with a significant wage incentive for schooling of urban children, the school drop out rate and child labour incidence are not small over this period. The parents’ level of education plays an important role in reducing this tendency; thus establishing the linkage between social and human capital outcomes in the family. We also look at the incidence of harmful and manual occupations among the child labour. Mother’s education appears as the more important factor in the recent round in curbing the manual work incidences; supporting earlier findings that women’s empowerment (one important indicator of which would be female educational level) is indeed becoming instrumental in increasing parental awareness. Using a pooled data set, we have also analysed the changes in the impact of parental education on these decisions between 1999–2000 and 2004–05. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India is committed to Millennium Development Goals regarding prenatal health but still the utilization of quality source of prenatal-care is lacking. In this paper an attempt has been made to examine the socioeconomic determinants of utilization of quality source of prenatal-care by the women in the age group of 15-49 years. Micro data having 25,896 observations from Indian Demographic Health Survey 2006 has been used. Binary logistic regression analysis is utilized to determine the association between the utilization of quality source of prenatal-care and explanatory variables categorized into demographic, socioeconomic, health and regional characteristics. Quality source of prenatal-care is defined as the prenatal-care taken from medical expert. The results have shown that age of woman at first marriage, husband's age, woman's education, husband's education, final say on woman's health-care by woman and husband collectively and husband alone, wealth index, female head of household, ever terminated pregnancy, household covered by insurance and husband's presence during prenatal visits increase the probability of utilization of quality source of prenatal-care. However, the combined family structure, birth-order of the child and living of the household in the town as compared the capital and large city decrease the probability of utilization of quality source of prenatal-care by Indian women. The implementation of law of minimum age for marriage, expansion in maternal health insurance, participation of husband in prenatal-care are proposed for enhancing the utilization of quality source of prenatal-care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is based on a well-focused and purposive field survey of 200 randomly selected sample households (HHs) from 20 villages of Odisha (the poorest state) in India, provides a critique of present institutional arrangements for delivery of social security measures-in terms of outreach and effectiveness. The exercise shows, on the one hand, the dissonance between below poverty line households and asset/wealth position of households and thus there is strong evidence of inclusion and exclusion errors and on the other, weak targeting efficiency and an important determinant of which seems to be what is called HH social/structural capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of financial development and economic misery on life expectancy after the implementation of financial reforms in the case of Indian economy. Economic growth, education expenditure and rural-urban income inequality are included as additional determinants of life expectancy over the period of 1990QI-2013QIV. Our empirical findings from the combined cointegration approach confirm the long-run equilibrium relationship among life expectancy, economic growth, economic misery, education expenditure, financial development and rural-urban income inequality. Further, our results on the long-run impact suggest that financial development, economic growth and education expenditure have a significant and positive impact on life expectancy while economic misery and rural-urban income inequality have a substantial negative impact. Our findings offer a significant contribution to the policy and to the body of knowledge. Policy makers can formulate appropriate policies towards reducing rural-urban income inequality and economic misery so that life expectancy can further increase in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using three quinquennial rounds of consumption expenditure data over two decades (1993-2012), this paper estimates the extent of money metric poverty and inequality in regions of India. Regions are made comparable, and the poverty head count ratio and the poverty gap ratio for 81 regions are derived using the state specific poverty lines as recommended by the Planning Commission of India. The gini index, rich-poor ratio and regression analyses are used to understand the extent of economic inequality in regions of India. Results indicate that though the extent of poverty has declined, economic inequality has increased in regions of India. During 1993-2012, the poverty head count ratio had decreased in 70 regions, increased in seven regions and remained similar in four regions of India. The southern regions of Odisha and southern regions of Chhattisgarh are reeling under high persistent poverty. The spread in poverty head count ratio among regions has increased from 0.38 in 1993-1994 to 0.64 in 2011-2012 confirming divergence in regional poverty in India. The pattern is similar with respect to poverty gap ratio. Regions of Tripura and Sikkim had highest improvements in poverty level. On contrast to poverty estimates, the gini index has decreased in 20 regions and increased in 61 regions. Likewise, 57 regions have recorded increase in rich-poor ratio. The rich-poor ratio was higher in developed regions and lower in less developed regions. Based on these findings, we suggest that regions with persistently high poverty be accorded priority in poverty alleviation program and explore the factors leading to increasing economic inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the Indian National Family Health Survey data for the year 2005-2006 to draw comparisons of height among adult women across regions for minority groups like caste and religion. Inter-personal, regional and temporal comparisons are easier and effective using a non-monetary indicator of well-being like height which is also an indicator of long term nutritional status. The results of this study show that Muslim women have significant height advantage but with substantial variations across Indian states. Compared to Hindu women, differences in mean heights are lower across wealth quintiles and levels of educational attainment among Muslim women. Child birth during teens affects the final heights attained but only for the Hindus wherein this difference disappears after education level of the woman is controlled for, indicating that schooling delays early childbirth. The quantile regression model shows that Muslim women are taller than Hindu women across bottom, middle and top quartiles after controlling for other factors and that the gap increases over the quartiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opportunity as a construct has been widely examined in for-profit entrepreneurship research, but it is scarcely studied in the context of social entrepreneurship. It is being observed that many entrepreneurs venture into social enterprise because they perceive it as an opportunity. This study aims to address this phenomenon by extensively identifying the opportunity indicators that promote entrepreneurs to pursue social entrepreneurship. We accomplish this by employing a mixed-methods approach wherein we used both quantitative and qualitative data from experts and analysed it using a hybrid approach of Delphi rounds and the best-worst method. We identified 13 opportunity indicators from the literature, and in the first round of Delphi, four new indicators were added to the list by a panel of 24 experts drawn from industry and academia across India. In the second round of the Delphi method, 18 of the 24 experts took part and rated the importance of each indicator on a 5-point Likert scale. Depending on the availability of the experts, both rounds of Delphi were held in person and virtually. Based on the cut-off levels for standard deviation, interquartile range, and probability of occurrence, experts agreed on 16 indicators. Furthermore, a best-worst method approach was used to prioritise these indicators based on the opinions of industry and academic experts. The study used a theoretical lens of entrepreneurial opportunity and its two different views: objectively discovered and subjectively perceived. The results revealed a consensus among academicians and practitioners for objectively discovered opportunity indicators, which gave the highest priority to "institutional support" and "funding opportunities." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing literature on subjective well-being (SWB), few studies have focused on developing countries. Applying robust OLS and ordered probit models to the India Human Development Survey panel data in 2005 and 2012, we empirically assess SWB changes in 2005–2012, based on a self-reported measure of changes in economic well-being, as a function of household and state covariates in 2005. This is in sharp contrast with earlier studies' focus on the levels of SWB. Another point of departure of our study is to compare the covariates of SWB changes with those of objective well-being (OWB) changes, proxied by the relative growth in real per capita household consumption expenditure between 2005 and 2012, to identify specific micro-level correlates of SWB changes. Households with an older and educated head in a larger household, located in urban areas or affluent states in 2005 tend to experience improvement in both SWB and OWB between 2005 and 2012. In contrast, households with a female household head, with more male members in the labour market, with regular access to mass media, without members suffering from non-communicable diseases or disabilities are more likely to be better off subjectively without experiencing the corresponding improvement in OWB. The policy challenges raise serious concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the recent approach of multidimensional deprivation measures to provide a comprehensive and wide ranging assessment of changes to living standards in India during the period, 1992/93-2004/5. This covers the reforms and the immediate post reforms time periods. The study is the first to be based on the simultaneous use of two parallel data sets, namely the National Sample Survey (NSS) and National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data sets, covering proximate rounds and near identical time periods. The results allow a check of consistency on the picture of deprivation in India between these two data sets. The study is conducted both at regionally disaggregated levels and by socio economic groups. The deprivation dimensions range widely from the conventional expenditure dimensions to non-expenditure dimensions such as access to drinking water and clean fuel, to health dimensions such as child stunting and the mother's BMI. The use of decomposable deprivation measures allows the identification of regions, socio economic groups and deprivation dimensions that are contributing more than others to total deprivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maslow's hierarchy-of-needs theory has been used to predict development of Quality of Life (QOL) in countries over time. In this paper an attempt has been taken to derive a methodological validation of quality of life questionnaire which have been prepared for the study area. The objective of the study is to standardize a questionnaire tool to assess the QoL of residents in a problem area in India. From a pre tested 16 parameter questionnaire tool factorial validity were established to extract three domains and were mapped in accordance to Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory. Out of these 16 parameters 13 were found relevant. Then a new tool was conceptualized with 13 pre selected parameters and other parameters were pooled from existing tool and reviews to form a 36 parameter tool. Factor analysis was done to extract the domains. Reliability of the tool was also tested to find the relation between the domains of QoL. Then the quality of life of the study area was interpreted to find the distribution of respondents among the categories of QoL. 70% of respondents reported to have average quality of life. The tool was found to be highly reliable and valid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to explore subjective well-being (SWB) in an urban Indian sample. Adults ( n = 1099) belonging to two wards in the city of Bangalore in South India, responded to a study-specific questionnaire. This paper is based on data generated as part of an ongoing larger study looking at correlates of SWB. Almost equal number of men and women responded to the study and their age ranged from 20 to 81 years (mean age 37 years). Majority of them were married, Hindus, from middle socio-economic status, had studied above pre-university level and more than half were earning. The mean scores on positive affect (40.9), negative affect (27.6) and life satisfaction (24) suggested above average levels of SWB. Higher age, being married, having higher education, higher income and working in a full time job seemed to improve life satisfaction and decrease negative affect. Religion was also significantly associated with negative affect. Step-wise regression analysis suggested that only education and income were important predictors of positive affect, while negative affect was better predicted by age, income, work status and religion. Life satisfaction was predicted by income, age and education. The important correlates of SWB for men and women were somewhat different. Overall, sociodemographic variables have minimal effect on SWB in urban India and research needs to explore other predictors of SWB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports on a field experiment conducted among poor women organized in self-help groups in the north-east of India. The experiment tests in a simple game whether overly optimistic expectations with respect to the benefits of exercising agency reduces one’s appreciation of remaining with agency in the future. If so, unrealistic expectations may trigger behaviour that jeopardizes empowerment processes. It is hypothesized that negative emotions, such as disappointment, bring about such risks. We find that overstretched expectations may indeed work against empowerment if the gap between achieved and expected outcomes following increased agency is sufficiently wide. However, modest expectation gaps have the opposite effect and tend to promote attitudes conducive to empowerment. A tentative explanation for this result is offered by combining insights from recent work on the role of aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses and compares the measurement of indicators and variables in the construction of education index in Human Development Index (HDI) at the global, national and 18 sub-national human development reports in India since 1990. The results show non-comparability of measurement of the education indicators and variables. This implies that vertical and horizontal comparability of HDI may not be plausible for India. Implications of these analyses are highlighted for measurement of quality of life indices with special reference to physical quality of life index. Policy lessons are derived for future measurement of education index for India in particular, and other developing countries in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic reforms initiated in India in 1991 have brought about visible upliftment of economic conditions of the country. This paper examines if the economic process is associated with an enhancement of India’s social development in equal measure in the reform decade of nineties. Ray (1989) considered thirteen social indicators of India and constructed the country’s social development index (SDI) as a certain weighted average of the selected indicators, for the years between 1950–51 and 1975–76. The present work broadly follows Ray () in tracking the social development in the decade of economic reforms from 1990–91 to 1999–2000. The movement of SDI in nineties has been compared with the movements of India’s per capita income and plan expenditure on the social sector. The results show that though there has been growth in the social sector, it is not by far quite encouraging and perhaps more needs to be done in the social sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses household level data from National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) of India, the 55th round (1999–2000), to show that for urban male children there exists significant wage incentive for schooling, though school dropout rate and child labour incidence are not so small. The parents’ level of education plays an important role in reducing this tendency; thus establishing the linkage between social and human capital outcomes in the family. We also look at the incidence of harmful and manual occupations among the child labour. Mother’s education now appears as a very important factor in curbing these incidences; supporting earlier findings that women’s empowerment (one important indicator of which would be female educational level) is indeed instrumental in increasing parental awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using deep learning with satellite images enhances our understanding of human development at a granular spatial and temporal level. Most studies have focused on Africa and on a narrow set of asset-based indicators. This article leverages georeferenced village-level census data from across 40% of the population of India to train deep models that predicts 16 indicators of human well-being from Landsat 7 imagery. Based on the principles of transfer learning, the census-based model is used as a feature extractor to train another model that predicts an even larger set of developmental variables—over 90 variables—included in two rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS). The census-based-feature-extractor model outperforms the current standard in the literature for most of these NFHS variables. Overall, the results show that combining satellite data with Indian Census data unlocks rich information for training deep models that track human development at an unprecedented geographical and temporal resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using income from nationally representative household surveys and district as the lowest level of aggregation, we examine the role of spatial factors in determining income inequality in India. In both rural and urban India, we find that within-district income differences account for majority of the income inequality in 2011. Moreover, between-state income differences are more important in explaining between-district inequality in rural India. In contrast, in urban areas it is the within-state income differences that play a more important role in explaining the between-district inequality. We find significantly smaller level of inequality but similar trends using the consumption expenditure. Finally, using data for 1993 and 2011, we find that although majority of the income inequality in rural India is explained by within-district income difference in both years, over time the share of between-district differences has increased and they account for a third of the total increase in rural income inequality between 1993 and 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a static model of agriculture household behaviour and incorporate two behavioural aspects in it-namely altruistic tendencies and perceptions related to crime. We use a game theoretic framework, based upon the standard agricultural household model proposed by Singh et al. (World Bank Econ Rev 1:149–179, 1986) which is well suited for a rural agricultural setting in a developing country like India. The results of the model show that altruism deters perception of crime in regions with comparatively low expenditure on crime reducing activities, and vice-versa. We empirically test the results of the theoretical model by using the India Human Development Survey-II for the year 2011–2012. The instrumental variable regression results validate our main hypothesis affirming the potential role of social capital in crime mitigation for states with weaker institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This has always been the dream of development thinkers to contribute in materializing the goal of sustainable development with maximum possible equity. It has become a challenging question whether development programs are really contributing in the welfare of masses and if so, what sort of policy messages can be taken from such success stories? In this connection, present study investigates the impact of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Community Development Program (AJKCDP) in multidimensional perspectives, while using both secondary and primary data to be collected through stratified purposive random sample of 560 respondents from four districts of AJ&K. Adjusted class of FGT measure was employed to estimate the incidence, depth and severity of poverty in absolute and relative framework. It was found that there are varying reflections of incidence, depth and severity of poverty across the sub-groups. Beside unidimensional poverty, multidimensional deprivation was also quantified for all registered and non-registered members of AJKCDP under different arbitrary weight arrangements. Most of such empirics clearly demonstrate the fact that multidimensional poverty was reduced in a higher proportion among the members as compared to non-members; whereas health dimension has been emerged as the leading contributor in multidimensional poverty in AJK. One key policy message emerges that no intervention can be sustainably workable and highly successful in improving the welfare of the masses until health related issues are addressed in conjunction with other development initiatives including institutional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic growth is considered to be the most important factor for achieving a lower level of poverty, but burgeoning inequality could affect poverty reduction adversely. This article decomposes the change in both rural and urban poverty into what can be termed as 'growth effect' and 'distribution effect' for twenty major Indian states during India's highest growth episode (2004–2011). It further examines the pro-poorness of the growth in these states. One of our key findings is that while income growth plays a key role in rural poverty reduction, rising inequality appears to be a major hindrance with respect to urban poverty. Our investigation also suggests that higher growth is not necessarily pro-poor. If the growth process itself is iniquitous, it might reduce the poverty elasticity of income and, in turn, result in slower poverty reduction despite high growth. This being specifically relevant for urban India and with urban poverty increasingly becoming a serious concern, economic policymakers should adopt a policy paradigm ensuring a more inclusive urban growth instead of considering growth as a panacea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is an attempt to look at the change in the regional disparity in the likelihood of educational transition from lower to higher levels of education from pre to the post-liberalization period. Secondly, we try to investigate the association between the likelihood of educational participation and educational transition from one to the next level of education and two labour market outcomes, such as likelihood of getting employment and expected earnings after the completion of education. This enables us to comment on the impact of the labour market outcomes on educational participation vis-à-vis this allows us to explain the reasons behind the inter-regional disparity in educational transition and overtime persistence of this disparity. For the accomplishment of these objectives we use the datasets provided by six quinquennial employment and unemployment surveys conducted by National Sample Survey Offices and third annual Periodic Labour Force Survey (2019–20), and we employ the sequential logistic model of regression. Findings reveal that there was a substantial regional disparity in educational participation and educational transition in school and college/university education across Indian states, though this disparity had declined satisfactorily in school education without any satisfactory decline in college/university education from pre-liberalization to post-liberalization period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]