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Now, let's look at mobility
in the Indian caste system
-
and how that mobility
has increased in recent times.
-
We'll consider the Scheduled
Caste and Tribes,
-
groups which were formally defined
in the Indian Constitution of 1950.
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Historically, these have been
disadvantaged groups in India.
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Researchers find that their
educational and income mobility
-
is converging to levels
for Non-Scheduled groups.
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For education, we can ask:
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What is the probability of an individual
from Scheduled Castes or Tribes
-
changing the level of education
across one generation?
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If we go back to 1983,
-
that probability was 42%.
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In 2004-2005,
-
that probability has gone up to 67%.
-
To put that in perspective,
-
compare it to the probabilities for
Non-Scheduled Castes/Tribes.
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That Probability went from 57% to 67%.
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What we can see is that,
by 2004-2005 for both groups,
-
it was 67%.
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For the Scheduled Castes
and Tribes, the largest changes
-
are movements out of illiteracy
to being able to read and write.
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Now, let's consider income,
-
specifically the median wage premium
-
comparing the Non-Scheduled Castes
and Non-Scheduled Tribes groups
-
to the Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes groups.
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As of 1983,
-
the Non-Scheduled Castes
and Non-Scheduled Tribes
-
enjoyed a median wage premium of 36%.
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By 2004-2005,
-
that premium had fallen to about 21%.
-
Just to put that in perspective,
-
that's smaller than the gap between
-
White and African-American incomes
in the United States.
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We can also consider elasticity of income
-
for the Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes groups.
-
That is, we're comparing now
the children with respect to their parents.
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If the parents earn, say,
an extra 1000 rupees a year,
-
over time,
-
how much more can we be expecting
children from those families to be earning.
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In 1983, that elasticity
was quite high, 0.9.
-
That means that the incomes
of parents are quite well
-
predicting the subsequent
incomes of their children.
-
Yet, by 2004-2005,
-
that elasticity had gone down to 0.55.
-
For the Non-Scheduled Castes
and Non-Scheduled Tribes,
-
that elasticity in 2004-2005
is sitting at about 0.61.
-
That means for the Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes
-
the incomes of parents actually
have less predictive power
-
for the incomes of children
-
compared to the Non-Scheduled Castes
and Non-Scheduled Tribes.
-
That indicates rising income mobility.
-
Overall, for the Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes,
-
it can be said that socio-economic
mobility has been rising
-
over the last 20 years.
-
One Dalit businessman put it quite well.
-
He said, "We are fighting
the caste system with capitalism."
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A Dalit activist put it this way:
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"Because of the new market economy,
-
material markers are
replacing social markers.
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Dalits can buy rank in
the market economy.
-
India is moving from a caste-based
to a class-based society
-
where, if you have all the goodies in life
and your bank account is booming,
-
you are acceptable."
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And, indeed in India, we are now
finding millionaires coming from
-
the more disadvantaged groups,
-
typically rising up
through small business.
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Looking for the reasons of
this partial convergence of fates,
-
I've already mentioned economic reforms
and also the freer economy in India,
-
but it's not just that.
-
There's also been a strengthening
of caste-based networks
-
and the lower castes now have
greater representation in politics.
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To read more on this fascinating topic,
well, at the popular level,
-
there's that New York Times article
referenced earlier.
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But to take a look at
the numbers and the formal research,
-
there are two papers
by Hnatkovska, Lahiri, and Paul,
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and they are here and
they are both available online.