Abstract
Being a woman in a patriarchic society has labor market cost due to institutional discrimination. It does not only imply in terms of the sex earnings ratio but has a significant impact on the long-term economic development. Using the 2011–12 National Sample Survey (NSS) data, this study analyzes gender inequality in earnings across different socioreligious groups in India. We appoint two different techniques of earnings gap decomposition: a parametric, and a matching-based non-parametric decomposition. Both methods confirm an active role of gender discrimination in the Indian labor market. Specifically, the non-parametric technique suggests that most of the earning gaps are due to gender discrimination. The parametric method additionally suggests that gender discrimination in socially vulnerable castes (e.g., tribes and scheduled castes) are far less than that in other socioreligious groups. The matching-based decomposition allows us to conclude that men workers, irrespective of castes, have some advantageous labor market characteristics through the historical practice of patriarchal favoritism. Findings of this study call for the promotion of gender empowerment through government policies on equity and justice.
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Acknowledgments
The authors like to acknowledge Professor Guillermina Jasso for the Student Paper Award at 2019 Biennial Population and Public Policy Conference. We also wish to thank Dr. Amanda Kerr, Dr. Soumi R. Chowdhury, and Dr. Kira Villa for their valuable feedback toward the first draft of the manuscript. Our sincere thanks to the anonymous reviewer whose comments and suggestions have significantly improved the manuscript. Finally, we extend our thanks to two small funding- J. Raymond Stuart Award in Economics, and Graduate & Professional Student Association (GPSA) Student Research Grant for the data purchase and conference participations.
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Disclaimer: The original article entitled “Working and Getting Paid, But Eventually Less Than Men: By How Much in India?” by Soumyajit Chakraborty, Alok K. Bohara, Melissa Binder, and Richard Santos is being submitted exclusively to the International Association of Applied Demography for publication consideration into an edited book titled “Population Change and Public Policy” by Springer International Publishing.
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Chakraborty, S., Bohara, A.K., Binder, M., Santos, R. (2020). Is the Indian Labor Market Biased Against Women? Yes!. In: Jivetti, B., Hoque, M.N. (eds) Population Change and Public Policy. Applied Demography Series, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57069-9_11
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