Motivation Education, particularly higher education, is seen as key to achieving

socio-economic mobility.

Advantage of higher education in labour markets: clear job market premium.

However, in several countries, including India, higher education is also strongly correlated with parental education, particularly father’s education.

Inter-generational persistence, rather than mobility?

Is mobility/ persistence differentiated by social identity, such as caste or religion? Question especially relevant for a growing, rapidly globally integrating economy.

Is this seen in urban areas, where labour markets are presumed to be meritocratic?

Inequality of Opportunity Liberal belief that a person’s chances to get ahead should not

be related to ascribed characteristics – social identities and socio-economic conditions.

Internationally, literature on inequality of opportunity is voluminous – related to race, gender, class and so forth.

Several theories and alternative scales: prestige scale; socio-economic indices; social class.

For India, a small but growing body of work.

My focus: link between social origin and educational attainment & social origin and occupational destination.

Earlier work Deshpande and Newman (2007) and associated studies: role of caste in urban,

formal sector labour markets.

Azam and Bhatt (2012): declining intergenerational elasticity of education (IGE): a measure of persistence: for birth cohorts of 1940-85

My recent research with national-level, macro data (Deshpande and Ramachandran, 2013) using NSS-55th (1999-2000) and NSS 66th (2009-10), covering birth cohorts of 1926-85, indicates the following:

Overall, intergenerational persistence has gone down over the two survey rounds, indicating an increase in mobility for all.

However, inter-generational persistence is the highest for SC-STs, followed by OBCs, and the lowest for “Others”.

Thus, “family background” continues to negatively impact current educational attainment of backward groups, indicating inequality of opportunity.

A Retrospective Survey What are the specific barriers in the path to higher education

(that spill over into differentiated labour market outcomes) for individuals from different social groups?

Ideally, a panel survey, tracking individuals over time, would be best suited to answer this question by mapping individual (and group) trajectories.

But in the absence of panel data, conducted a retrospective survey: ask individuals their educational and occupational details for the last “X” years.

Aim of the survey To track the educational and occupational trajectories of

respondents since they finished Class XII.

Focus on one gender, one city, same educational board, government schools with relative SES homogeneity, to control for some key starting conditions.

Chose to study men, rather than women, since the probability of locating them at the school leaving address is higher for men, than women.

Controlling gender and some other key initial conditions, aim to identify the factors that might account for divergent trajectories in higher ed and subsequent SES: class, caste and religion.

Why Higher Education? Less prone to measurement error than income or earnings.

Most individuals complete their education roughly by their mid-twenties, so the outcome is clear if they are surveyed at that time. Issues that bias income measurement, e.g. life-cycle versus current incomes, are unlikely to arise.

Higher education associated with better incomes/earnings, improved health, and other positive economic outcomes, as well as increased social status.

Note: a great deal of differentiation (due to early life discrimination) already occurs before Class Xll. However, that is the starting point for higher ed, so comparing individuals who have managed to reach that threshold.

The Survey (ongoing) Male students who completed Class XII from schools in

Delhi in 2003.

Survey started in June 2013: these men graduated from high school at least a decade back.

Strategy: approach schools (so far government schools) for contact details of the graduating batch of 2003.

Try to contact all individuals in that cohort.

Interview all those who are traceable (and willing to respond!)

Why Delhi? The capital city, a large, bustling metropolis, supposedly a melting

pot, fast-growing, rich state, offering plenty of learning and job opportunities (both in the city as well as in the NCR region).

The best site to study whether globalisation and the concomitant fast growth of market-based, private sector jobs is creating a meritocratic labour market, at least in the formal sector, where individuals obtain jobs based on their human capital characteristics, rather than social identities, such as caste and religion.

By comparing sons to their fathers and grandfathers, this survey also allows us to test if the intergenerational transmission of the importance of social identity (caste and religion) in mediating economic outcomes is weakening over time.

The Survey Questionnaire Detailed information about family background (father, mother,

wife, siblings, maternal and paternal grandfathers’ educational and occupational attainment), asset ownership, caste, religion etc.

Details about respondents’ Class XII –stream studied, marks obtained, the respondents’ post-XII educational history, their job history (each course studied, each job done, including part-time jobs), how they got their job(s) to explore the role, type (family, kin, caste, friends and acquaintances etc.) and quality of networks

For those eligible, details about their use of quotas or other caste-based benefits and their views about these policies.

Reporting a few key results today (rest available with author upon request!)

Coverage so far Data from 35 schools

Across 7 school districts (administrative districts of the DoE)

25 Assembly segments

594 respondents

81% schools run by DoE; 19% DoE Aided

All urban (by design)

Narrow age band (25-35 years): 60% are 27-28 years old 32% are 29-31 years old

Caste and Religion Caste groups:

SC-ST 24 %; OBC 20 % and Others 55%

Religious background: Hindu: 91% Muslim: 7% Sikh: 1.6% Rest: Jain and Other religions, such as Christian.

Some key averages by caste

Assets Constructed an “asset index” using “Principal Components

Analysis” (PCA), based on ownership of 14 assets included in the survey: car, scooter/motorcycle, bicycle, cooler, AC, washing machine, sewing machine, refrigerator, TV, computer, landline phone, mobile phone, set-top box connection, sofa set.

Based on the asset index values:

Differentiation by XII Stream

By Religion

Differentiation by Class XII Result

Highest Education

Current Occupation

Reservations

Those not using quotas

Public versus Private Sector Jobs

Realities of the labour market: overwhelming majority are working in the private sector.

Proportions of SCSTs and OBCs in government jobs higher than that for “Others”

Caste Irrelevant? Inter-caste marriages

Overwhelming majority reported within-caste marriage.

Most of those who answered “no” to “is your wife from the same caste” interpreted caste literally as surname. (So a Brahmin boy married to a “Mishra” girl reported his as an inter-caste marriage).

Of the 266 respondents who were married, there were 20 inter-caste marriages.

Of these, 3 with SC-ST grooms, 2 with OBC grooms, 15 with “Other” grooms, but wife caste often interpreted as wife’s jati (and not social group).

Concluding comments Clear inter-caste and inter-religion differences in starting points

for higher education: family background, stream chosen for Class XII, Class XII exam scores.

Preliminary regressions show that controlling for all these (and other factors) does not eliminate the significant effect of caste and religion on outcomes such as the highest level of education attained, current occupation etc.

Quotas or other caste-based policies would work to mediate some of these differences, but space for AA shrinking with stagnation in public sector jobs.

Social identities (caste, religion) continue to matter in shaping trajectories of socio-economic outcomes, even in a modern metropolis.