Omkar Joshi - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Omkar Joshi
Review of Development and Change, 2017
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted in 2005 and has ... more The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted in 2005 and has completed a little over a decade in India. It is the largest public employment programme in the world and has promoted a wider participation from rural households across the country. This paper examines the issue of programme participation in MGNREGA holistically by looking at household and individual-level participation and controlling for regional heterogeneity, using a unique panel data from the nationally representative India Human Development Survey. Using a binary logistic model and fixed effects models at the state and village level, the paper finds that poor households with a low asset base and those belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC)/Scheduled Tribe (ST) categories are more likely to participate in the programme, but the support base of MGNREGA is not just limited to these groups and is rather broad-based. It also shows that as compared to other types of work, women suffer less disadvantage than men, thereby providing empowerment opportunities to women.
The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 2019
The past three decades have seen the advent of major transformations in the Indian economy. The e... more The past three decades have seen the advent of major transformations in the Indian economy. The economy has achieved average growth rates of 5-9%, education has risen sharply for both men and women, fertility rates have declined, and infrastructure facilities, particularly access to electricity, cooking gas and piped water, have improved. All these factors are expected to reduce the demand for women's time spent in domestic chores and increase their opportunities for paid work. Paradoxically, however, the National Sample Surveys document a substantial decline in women's work participation rates (WPRs), particularly for rural women. Optimistic interpretation of these trends suggests that increasing prosperity accounts for women's labour force withdrawal. For young women, rising school and college enrolment is incompatible with demands of the workforce. For both young and older women, rising prosperity allows for withdrawal from economic activities to focus on domestic duties. Pessimistic interpretations of these trends suggest that it is absence of suitable jobs rather than women's withdrawal from the labour force that accounts for declining female work participation. A third explanation focuses on increasing measurement errors in work participation data from the National Sample Surveys. This paper examines these diverse explanations using data from National Sample Surveys and India Human Development Surveys for 2004-2005 and 2011-2012 and finds that: (1) Decline in rural women's work participation recorded by National Sample Surveys may be overstated; (2) supply factors explain a relatively small proportion of the decline in women's work participation rates; (3) public policies such as improvement and transportation facilities and MGNREGS that enhance work opportunities for women are associated with increased participation by women in the work force.
Economic and Political Weekly, 2020
The caste (jati)-based practice of untouchability in India, shifting the focus from the victims o... more The caste (jati)-based practice of untouchability in India, shifting the focus from the victims of this practice, the ex-untouchables (Dalits), to the perpetrators, the non-Dalits is examined by identifying and disaggregating communities that continue to practise untouchability. The second wave of the India Human Development Survey data has been used to generate a socioeconomic profile of those who practise untouchability in India, and check the hypothesis that households with a wider network outside the community than with one within the community are less likely to practise untouchability, and uses a logistic regression model to measure this effect at the all-India level.
The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 2019
The past three decades have seen the advent of major transformations in the Indian economy. The e... more The past three decades have seen the advent of major transformations in the Indian economy. The economy has achieved average growth rates of 5-9%, education has risen sharply for both men and women, fertility rates have declined, and infrastructure facilities, particularly access to electricity, cooking gas and piped water, have improved. All these factors are expected to reduce the demand for women's time spent in domestic chores and increase their opportunities for paid work. Paradoxically , however, the National Sample Surveys document a substantial decline in women's work participation rates (WPRs), particularly for rural women. Optimistic interpretation of these trends suggests that increasing prosperity accounts for wom-en's labour force withdrawal. For young women, rising school and college enrolment is incompatible with demands of the workforce. For both young and older women, rising prosperity allows for withdrawal from economic activities to focus on domestic duties. Pessimistic interpretations of these trends suggest that it is absence of suitable jobs rather than women's withdrawal from the labour force that accounts for declining female work participation. A third explanation focuses on increasing measurement errors in work participation data from the National Sample Surveys. This paper examines these diverse explanations using data from National Sample Surveys and India Human Development Surveys for 2004-2005 and 2011-2012 and finds that: (1) Decline in rural women's work participation recorded by National Sample Surveys may be overstated; (2) supply factors explain a relatively small proportion of the decline in women's work participation rates; (3) public policies such as improvement and transportation facilities and MGNREGS that enhance work opportunities for women are associated with increased participation by women in the work force.
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted in 2005 and has ... more The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
(MGNREGA) was enacted in 2005 and has completed a little over
a decade in India. It is the largest public employment programme
in the world and has promoted a wider participation from rural
households across the country. This paper examines the issue of
programme participation in MGNREGA holistically by looking
at household and individual-level participation and controlling
for regional heterogeneity, using a unique panel data from the
nationally representative India Human Development Survey. Using
a binary logistic model and fixed effects models at the state and
village level, the paper finds that poor households with a low asset
base and those belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC)/Scheduled
Tribe (ST) categories are more likely to participate in the programme,
but the support base of MGNREGA is not just limited to these
groups and is rather broad-based. It also shows that as compared
to other types of work, women suffer less disadvantage than men,
thereby providing empowerment opportunities to women.
Books by Omkar Joshi
Institutional and cultural norms, particularly in developing countries, are such that women typic... more Institutional and cultural norms, particularly in developing countries, are such that women typically have access to less resources and face discrimination right from their birth (in some instances, even before their birth) to death. Such norms tend to be sticky and are not easily dismantled with modernization or economic progress. To be able to meet the goals of gender equity as articulated in Sustainable Development Goal 5, it is essential to gain a deeper understanding of these gender norms. It is against this backdrop that we examine gender ideology among young adolescents in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh using the two waves (2015-16 and 2018) of the UDAYA data by the Population Council. Specically, we ask the following questions: What is the gender ideology of adolescents in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh? Is there a difference in ideology between young (10-14 years) and old (15-19 years) adolescents? Do boys and girls have different gender ideologies? How do religion, caste, class, and location along with the adolescent's family of origin mediate the construction of gender? We draw on intersectional and life course perspective theoretical frameworks and employ multivariate regression technique for our analysis.
Chinese Families: Tradition, Modernization, and Change, 2021
Purpose: This study investigates how couple similarity in various aspects affects their life sati... more Purpose: This study investigates how couple similarity in various aspects affects their life satisfaction and how these impacts vary across educational groups among the young married couples in Shanghai. Methodology: This study employs the pooled data from three waves of the Fudan Yangtze River Delta Social Transformation Survey which sampled Shanghai youths born between 1980 and 1989, the first single-child generation. Couple similarity is evaluated through the comparison in age, hukou status, education, and income quartile between the husband and wife. Ordered logistic regression model is applied to assess the impacts of couple similarity on life satisfaction.
Review of Development and Change, 2017
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted in 2005 and has ... more The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted in 2005 and has completed a little over a decade in India. It is the largest public employment programme in the world and has promoted a wider participation from rural households across the country. This paper examines the issue of programme participation in MGNREGA holistically by looking at household and individual-level participation and controlling for regional heterogeneity, using a unique panel data from the nationally representative India Human Development Survey. Using a binary logistic model and fixed effects models at the state and village level, the paper finds that poor households with a low asset base and those belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC)/Scheduled Tribe (ST) categories are more likely to participate in the programme, but the support base of MGNREGA is not just limited to these groups and is rather broad-based. It also shows that as compared to other types of work, women suffer less disadvantage than men, thereby providing empowerment opportunities to women.
The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 2019
The past three decades have seen the advent of major transformations in the Indian economy. The e... more The past three decades have seen the advent of major transformations in the Indian economy. The economy has achieved average growth rates of 5-9%, education has risen sharply for both men and women, fertility rates have declined, and infrastructure facilities, particularly access to electricity, cooking gas and piped water, have improved. All these factors are expected to reduce the demand for women's time spent in domestic chores and increase their opportunities for paid work. Paradoxically, however, the National Sample Surveys document a substantial decline in women's work participation rates (WPRs), particularly for rural women. Optimistic interpretation of these trends suggests that increasing prosperity accounts for women's labour force withdrawal. For young women, rising school and college enrolment is incompatible with demands of the workforce. For both young and older women, rising prosperity allows for withdrawal from economic activities to focus on domestic duties. Pessimistic interpretations of these trends suggest that it is absence of suitable jobs rather than women's withdrawal from the labour force that accounts for declining female work participation. A third explanation focuses on increasing measurement errors in work participation data from the National Sample Surveys. This paper examines these diverse explanations using data from National Sample Surveys and India Human Development Surveys for 2004-2005 and 2011-2012 and finds that: (1) Decline in rural women's work participation recorded by National Sample Surveys may be overstated; (2) supply factors explain a relatively small proportion of the decline in women's work participation rates; (3) public policies such as improvement and transportation facilities and MGNREGS that enhance work opportunities for women are associated with increased participation by women in the work force.
Economic and Political Weekly, 2020
The caste (jati)-based practice of untouchability in India, shifting the focus from the victims o... more The caste (jati)-based practice of untouchability in India, shifting the focus from the victims of this practice, the ex-untouchables (Dalits), to the perpetrators, the non-Dalits is examined by identifying and disaggregating communities that continue to practise untouchability. The second wave of the India Human Development Survey data has been used to generate a socioeconomic profile of those who practise untouchability in India, and check the hypothesis that households with a wider network outside the community than with one within the community are less likely to practise untouchability, and uses a logistic regression model to measure this effect at the all-India level.
The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 2019
The past three decades have seen the advent of major transformations in the Indian economy. The e... more The past three decades have seen the advent of major transformations in the Indian economy. The economy has achieved average growth rates of 5-9%, education has risen sharply for both men and women, fertility rates have declined, and infrastructure facilities, particularly access to electricity, cooking gas and piped water, have improved. All these factors are expected to reduce the demand for women's time spent in domestic chores and increase their opportunities for paid work. Paradoxically , however, the National Sample Surveys document a substantial decline in women's work participation rates (WPRs), particularly for rural women. Optimistic interpretation of these trends suggests that increasing prosperity accounts for wom-en's labour force withdrawal. For young women, rising school and college enrolment is incompatible with demands of the workforce. For both young and older women, rising prosperity allows for withdrawal from economic activities to focus on domestic duties. Pessimistic interpretations of these trends suggest that it is absence of suitable jobs rather than women's withdrawal from the labour force that accounts for declining female work participation. A third explanation focuses on increasing measurement errors in work participation data from the National Sample Surveys. This paper examines these diverse explanations using data from National Sample Surveys and India Human Development Surveys for 2004-2005 and 2011-2012 and finds that: (1) Decline in rural women's work participation recorded by National Sample Surveys may be overstated; (2) supply factors explain a relatively small proportion of the decline in women's work participation rates; (3) public policies such as improvement and transportation facilities and MGNREGS that enhance work opportunities for women are associated with increased participation by women in the work force.
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted in 2005 and has ... more The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
(MGNREGA) was enacted in 2005 and has completed a little over
a decade in India. It is the largest public employment programme
in the world and has promoted a wider participation from rural
households across the country. This paper examines the issue of
programme participation in MGNREGA holistically by looking
at household and individual-level participation and controlling
for regional heterogeneity, using a unique panel data from the
nationally representative India Human Development Survey. Using
a binary logistic model and fixed effects models at the state and
village level, the paper finds that poor households with a low asset
base and those belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC)/Scheduled
Tribe (ST) categories are more likely to participate in the programme,
but the support base of MGNREGA is not just limited to these
groups and is rather broad-based. It also shows that as compared
to other types of work, women suffer less disadvantage than men,
thereby providing empowerment opportunities to women.
Institutional and cultural norms, particularly in developing countries, are such that women typic... more Institutional and cultural norms, particularly in developing countries, are such that women typically have access to less resources and face discrimination right from their birth (in some instances, even before their birth) to death. Such norms tend to be sticky and are not easily dismantled with modernization or economic progress. To be able to meet the goals of gender equity as articulated in Sustainable Development Goal 5, it is essential to gain a deeper understanding of these gender norms. It is against this backdrop that we examine gender ideology among young adolescents in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh using the two waves (2015-16 and 2018) of the UDAYA data by the Population Council. Specically, we ask the following questions: What is the gender ideology of adolescents in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh? Is there a difference in ideology between young (10-14 years) and old (15-19 years) adolescents? Do boys and girls have different gender ideologies? How do religion, caste, class, and location along with the adolescent's family of origin mediate the construction of gender? We draw on intersectional and life course perspective theoretical frameworks and employ multivariate regression technique for our analysis.
Chinese Families: Tradition, Modernization, and Change, 2021
Purpose: This study investigates how couple similarity in various aspects affects their life sati... more Purpose: This study investigates how couple similarity in various aspects affects their life satisfaction and how these impacts vary across educational groups among the young married couples in Shanghai. Methodology: This study employs the pooled data from three waves of the Fudan Yangtze River Delta Social Transformation Survey which sampled Shanghai youths born between 1980 and 1989, the first single-child generation. Couple similarity is evaluated through the comparison in age, hukou status, education, and income quartile between the husband and wife. Ordered logistic regression model is applied to assess the impacts of couple similarity on life satisfaction.