Mobility in the caste system

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.

Historically, these have been
disadvantaged groups in India.

Researchers find that their
educational and income mobility

is converging to levels
for Non-Scheduled groups.

For education, we can ask:

What is the probability of an individual
from Scheduled Castes or Tribes

changing the level of education
across one generation?

If we go back to 1983,

that probability was 42%.

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.

That Probability went from 57% to 67%.

What we can see is that,
by 2004-2005 for both groups,

it was 67%.

For the Scheduled Castes
and Tribes, the largest changes

are movements out of illiteracy
to being able to read and write.

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.

As of 1983,

the Non-Scheduled Castes
and Non-Scheduled Tribes

enjoyed a median wage premium of 36%.

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.

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.

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.

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."

A Dalit activist put it this way:

"Because of the new market economy,

material markers are
replacing social markers.

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."

And, indeed in India, we are now
finding millionaires coming from

the more disadvantaged groups,

typically rising up
through small business.

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.

To read more on this fascinating topic,
well, at the popular level,

there's that New York Times article
referenced earlier.

But to take a look at
the numbers and the formal research,

there are two papers
by Hnatkovska, Lahiri, and Paul,

and they are here and
they are both available online.