Employment situation among various social groups in India

Vini Sivanandan, Gokhale Institute of Politics & Economics, India
Arokiasamy Perianayagam, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

Disparity, measured in terms of representation in employmentby social groups with achievement in higher education gives an insight of existing affirmative policies in India. Affirmative policies implemented for almost six decades are expected to bring the traditionally backward social group representation in employment in par with the forward social group. An attempt was made to measure the intra and inter group disparities between and among the social groups by using decompositional analysis of Theil index and arithmetic and geometric means by reprsentation in employment rich (grade I) and employment poor (grade II) type of employment. Regional analysis showed caste Others with highest participation in grade I type of employment and lowest participation in grade II type of employment, except in rural regions. The difference between the social groups in terms of participation of population further increased with the inclusion of population with higher education. Consistently, the gap between the caste Others and ST, SC, OBC further widened in participation in employment when higher education is taken into consideration. Analysis of females with achievement in higher education showed that participation rate in both the grades of employment for caste Others is lower than caste ST, SC and OBC. Notably, the female from caste Others with higher education and participation in employment showed below average participation in employment during the period 2005-06.