Publication Details

Caste, affirmative action and disscrimination in India

Ira Gang
Kunal Sen
Myeong-Su Yun
2010

Abstract

Affirmative action has been at the heart of public policies towards the socially disadvantaged inIndia. Compensatory discrimination policies which have been adopted for the Scheduled Castes (SC)and Scheduled Tribes (ST) since independence are now available to Other Backward Classes (OBC).We examine why OBC have lower living standards, as measured by per capita householdconsumption expenditures, relative to the mainstream population, and whether these reasons aresimilar to those observed for SC and ST. We find that while the causes of the living standard gap forthe OBC are broadly similar to those for the SC and ST, the role of educational attainment inexplaining the gap is higher in importance for the OBC.

Publication Type(s)

Conference Paper

Ten Years of War Against Poverty Conference Papers

Conference: Ten Years of War Against Poverty

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