Papers by Rajendra Mamgain
Routledge India eBooks, Mar 17, 2023
IDS Bulletin, 2012
India's growth story in recent years is being criticised for its inability to reduce the ever-inc... more India's growth story in recent years is being criticised for its inability to reduce the ever-increasing income inequality and higher incidence of malnutrition among its children, particularly those belonging to marginalised groups such as Scheduled Castes (SCs). This article examines the prevalence of identity-based discrimination in health and nutritional programmes and finds it to be one of the important reasons for the higher incidence of malnutrition among SC children. While examining the guidelines of two major nutritional support programmes-the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and the Mid Day Meal (MDM) Scheme-the article argues for making these more caste-and gender-sensitive in order to eliminate discrimination. It offers policy recommendations to address and monitor the discrimination in nutrition programmes. These include greater participation by marginalised groups like SCs in service planning and delivery, ensuring quality and promoting accountability; training and sensitisation of service providers; and the revision of administrative guidelines.
Indian journal of agricultural economics, 2017
The Indian Economic Journal
One of the major policy concerns in recent years has been decline in the number of women workers ... more One of the major policy concerns in recent years has been decline in the number of women workers in the Indian labour market. The ‘education’ and ‘income’ effect hypotheses for such decline are generally advocated. Such analyses, however, are limited in their focus. This study attempts to fill up this gap by exclusively focusing on rural women. Using the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) data for the years 2004–2005 and 2011–2012 and Periodic Labour Force Survey data for the year 2017–2018, it observes a widespread decline in rural women’s work participation rates (WPRs) across their different social groups, income strata and states in the country albeit at a significantly varying rate. While the major decline in women WPRs in the age-group, 15–24 years has been in favour of education, it has been largely in favour of ‘domestic works’ in the other age-groups. The major decline in women workforce is observed in case of those as not-literates, ‘unpaid family labour’ in agricu...
This chapter shows how a majority of available regular employment—generally considered better ove... more This chapter shows how a majority of available regular employment—generally considered better over other forms of employment, is devoid of any social security and largely contributed by informal enterprises. Among regular salaried workers, the situation of contractual workers on social security entitlements is worrisome. The degree of such informality of employment is comparatively high in low-end occupations. More so, access to regular salaried employment is significantly influenced by the social background of workers. SCs, STs, and Muslims are largely concentrated in informal sector wage employment. The chapter argues how informational asymmetries in urban labor market create unequal labor outcomes in terms of access to employment and income and demonstrates that despite a notable progress in the penetration of information technology in India, social networks still remain critical in providing job information to regular wage employment. Even a large proportion of employers in form...
Marginalized groups in India such as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are making much slower... more Marginalized groups in India such as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are making much slower progress than other social groups in the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). How would a post-2015 development framework incorporate their concerns into its strategies and indicators? How would it address the issues of identity-based exclusion and discrimination in countries like India where nearly one-quarter of the population suffers from such social exclusion despite the existence of constitutional safeguards? How should stakeholders such as UN agencies, donor agencies, governments, civil society organizations, NGOs, academia and the private sector engage in post-2015 development goals? This paper argues for a development framework that ensures faster reduction in poverty and inequality for India’s most vulnerable groups; that eliminates all forms of discrimination against them and ensures social inclusion with dignity.
The paper examines nature, forms and consequences of social exclusion in the Indian society. It a... more The paper examines nature, forms and consequences of social exclusion in the Indian society. It argues how social exclusion resulted in low development outcomes for SCs as compared to other social groups even having comprehensive constitutional safeguards. The paper attempts to analyse the underlying causes of atrocities on SCs in the framework of social exclusion, discrimination, vulnerability and rising assertiveness among SCs about their rights and dignity. It argues for new thinking and related actions altogether which could accelerate economic well-being of SCs at a faster pace, embolden the social reforms and intensifies cultural movements to change societal mindsets. This would necessitate to revisit the existing acts, programmes of empowerment and their guidelines, monitoring mechanisms, training and sensitisation programmes, and make necessary measures to effective programme delivery at a faster pace.
Based on primary survey data, the study begins with a brief overview of the theoretical and empir... more Based on primary survey data, the study begins with a brief overview of the theoretical and empirical evidence on employment and livelihoods for rural households in Chapter I. A macro picture of the economy of Uttaranchal is presented in Chapters II and III based on the secondary data. The former analyses the composition and trends in the growth of state domestic product, land use, cropping pattern and industrial development and the latter (Chapter III) examines the growth in population, labour force and workforce in detail along with educational development in the state. It has been argued that despite the scarcity of productive assets like land in the mountain region in Uttaranchal women’s participation in the workforce is very high—a common feature which they do so to support the livelihoods of their households. Returns from such higher work participation, however, are abysmally low as reflected in low productivity levels. Chapter IV delineates the socio-economic characteristics ...
Using the NSSO Employment and Unemployment Survey Rounds as the basis, this paper examines questi... more Using the NSSO Employment and Unemployment Survey Rounds as the basis, this paper examines questions of unemployment, employment and human capital formation among Indian youth belonging to various social and religious groups across different regions since the advent of the economic reforms in the early 1990s. The paper argues for strengthening measures to create decent employment on a large scale and for improving the education and skill levels of youths with a greater focus on those belonging to the marginalised groups of Indian society.
The article questions employment and its quality in one of the least developed states in India, n... more The article questions employment and its quality in one of the least developed states in India, namely Uttar Pradesh, with a focus on gender and social groups. Despite a reasonable growth in Uttar Pradesh, the per capita income in the state is almost half of the national average, and such gap tended to increase over the years. Along with a slow pace of structural transformation, most of the growth in employment opportunities was in the form of casual wage works, mainly in the construction sector of the state. Such high pace of casualization was widespread in all regions of the state except the eastern region where dependence on agriculture did not reduce due to lack of such opportunities. The growth rate in regular employment opportunities in the state was almost three times lower than that at the national level. Uttar Pradesh suffers from a huge deficit of remunerative employment opportunities. A large proportion of those working as casual wage labour and those self-employed in agr...
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Papers by Rajendra Mamgain