Upasak Das

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act that guarantees employment of every rural household for 100 days has different progressive provisions to incentivise participation of women in the programme. Official data suggest that 47% of all MGNREGA workers are women. The extent to which the programme is inclusive of women, with a particular focus on sub-populations of women such as widows and mothers of young children who typically face serious constraints in the context of labour market participation, is examined in this study using data from the National Sample Survey. The study finds that while the MGNREGA has indeed been inclusive of women, the substantial variations both across states and the exclusion of vulnerable groups of women demand attention.

ABSTRACT Rationing and its implication on targeting of benefits to the poorer population is among the major concern of policy makers. Taking 66th round data of National Sample Survey (2009-10), this paper examines the implications of type 1 and type 2 rationing of work under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in India for poorer households. Using regression analysis, it attempts to find, if the households, which sought but did not get work, are poorer (by various indicators) than the ones, who got work (type 2) and then explores, if the non-poor households got higher number of days of work than the poor households (type 1). The results show that the households with lower per capita consumption expenditure have significantly lower probability of getting work compared to non-poor. This has left behind a substantial exclusion of poor, without work. It also gives evidence that non poor households get work for significantly higher number of days than poor households. The results highlight the implication of rationing, which led to exclusion of benefits for the poor. Hence, it welcomes the recent move by the government to scale up the works under MGNREGS, which is expected to reduce rationing of jobs.

This study investigates the consequences of poor implementation in public workfare programs, focusing on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in India. Using nationally representative data, we test empirically for a discouraged worker effect arising from either of two mechanisms: administrative rationing of jobs among those who seek work and delays in wage payments. We find strong evidence at the household and district levels that administrative rationing discourages subsequent demand for work. Delayed wage payments seem to matter significantly during rainfall shocks. We find further that rationing is strongly associated with indicators of implementation ability such as staff capacity. Politics appears to play only a limited role. The findings suggest that assessments of the relevance of public programs over their lifecycle need to factor in implementation quality.

Population ageing is intriguing phenomenon and especially important for India, where social benefits for the older population are low. Against the absence of social security and growing nuclearization of families, the aged individuals may have to resort to wage labor. In this context, using Employment-Unemployment Surveys (1993-94 and 2009-10) and Probit and Heckman selection models, we examine changes in determinants of wage labor participation and weekly days of labor supply of the elderly over last two decades. Findings indicate that elders from poorer and weaker sections have significantly higher compulsion for labor participation in both rural and urban areas and more so in 2009-10. Also, significant negative association is found between weekly labor supply and few poverty correlates for urban areas in 2009-10. Simulations from local polynomial smoothing regressions and ethnographic evidences are further provided to corroborate the findings. This calls for universal pension sch...

ABSTRACT The paper investigates prevalence of political clientelism in allocation of benefits under the rural employment guarantee program, currently implemented in India. Using survey data collected from some villages of West Bengal, it is found that households, which are politically active and supporters of the local ruling political party, are more likely to receive the benefits in terms of participation, number of days of work and earnings from the program. Qualitative evidence corroborates the findings. The study shows predominance of political favoritism under the program and lays emphasis on reducing rationing and enhancing awareness of the entitlements to curb this practice.

ABSTRACT One of the most significant feature of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has been the demand based principle, which allows for no rationing of the labourers, who seek work under the scheme. However, studies have found that rationing has been one of the significant problem of this programme, where households have ended up not getting work, despite of seeking. This papers attempts to study whether under the system of rationing, the households, who got work are poor and from the disadvantaged sections. It also attempts to find if the households, who sought but did not get work are poor and disadvantaged. Since studies have shown that the scheme has been very poorly implemented in West Bengal, we study the above for the state. It uses National Sample Survey data for the 66th round (2009-10) and makes use of various parametric as well as non parametric techniques including bivariate probit model with sample selection along with logistic regressions. The study finds that the poor have been relatively well targeted by the programme in the sense that the better off households did not work. However it finds SC having significantly negative probability of getting work controlling for all the other factors. The paper then emphasizes on the implications of rationing, which suggest that substantial number of poor are denied work despite of their seeking. Further, the study goes on to analyse if the number of days worked by the households, who participated in the programme are biased towards the non poor. In other words, it attempts to explore if the non poor, who worked, got more number of days to work for the scheme compared to the poor households. Along with the non parametric test, count regressions with Heckman sample selection have been used. Preliminary results suggest that the poor and disadvantaged households do not get work for higher number of days compared to the non poor. Further, the paper also presents some qualitative evidences collected from through household interviews and focus group discussions in different districts of West Bengal to support the results obtained from the quantitative approach.

ABSTRACT Decentralization at the local level in developing economies can be seen as a force of social change with the power at the hands of the citizens to influence policies according to their needs. However, the problem of political clientelism may be imminent where public resources are allocated to individuals or specific groups who are members of the political party locally in power. In this context, using survey data for 540 rural households in the Cooch Behar District of the State of West Bengal, this paper investigates the prevalence of political clientelism in allocating works under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which is implemented and carried out at the local level.It is found that households that are well connected to the political parties have significantly higher chances of getting work, compared to those who are not connected. Similar results are found for households who support the local ruling political party in power. Furthermore, it is found that politically well-connected households and ruling party supporters are associated with a significantly higher number of days of work. Ethnographic evidences collected from the field corroborate with these findings.In further analysis, the paper explores whether or not political clientelism is stronger in left governed villages, and finds that to be the case. The study points to the existence of political clientelism in the implementation of MGNREGA, and lays emphasis on the importance of reducing rationing of labor to curb clientelism.

Against the backdrop of the general absence of social benefits (for the elderly) and growing nuclearization of families, we examine the changes in determinants of wage labor participation and supply of the elderly (60 years and above) over the last two decades in India. We use national level Employment-Unemployment Surveys (1993-94 and 2009-10) and Probit as well as Heckman sample selection models for the estimation. Findings show that the negative association between wage labor participation and the age of the elderly has weakened during the study period indicating that the extent of decrease in wage labor participation due to increase in age of the elderly has come down during 1993-2010. Findings also indicate that the elders from poorer and weaker sections have higher compulsion for labor participation in both rural and urban areas and more so in 2009-10. Further, we find that the elders from smaller households (with 4 or less members) are more likely to participate in wage labor in rural as well as urban areas. Moreover, we find that the elders from the poorer sections in rural areas are compelled to work for higher number of days in a week in comparison to the richer elders and this relationship has become stronger in 2009-10. The findings call for a universal pension scheme for improved welfare of the elderly population in India.

Rationing and its implication on accuracy of targeting of benefits to the intended beneficiaries in an anti-poverty programme is an essential component of its evaluation. Taking nationally representative data for 2009–2010 and 2011–2012, this paper evaluates the performance of the Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India in terms of targeting of benefits to the poorer households. It attempts to find if households, which did not get work after demanding are poorer than the ones, who got work and then explores, if the non-poor households got work for higher number of days under the programme in comparison to the poorer ones. Findings from the regressions, which control for the potential sample selection bias show that the poorer households in terms of monthly consumption expenditure have lesser probability of getting work in both the years, though traces of improvement in targeting is observed in 2011–2012. Poorer households are also found to be significantly associated with lower days of work in 2009–2010 compared to the relatively better-off ones. The results lay emphasis on the need to reduce rationing and generate awareness on the basic entitlements of the programme along with higher accountability and vigilance for better targeting.

Using survey data from the Cooch Behar district of West Bengal, the paper documents the impact of the rural employment guarantee scheme in reducing rural out-migration. Using regression framework and case studies, it finds no significant impact of household participation in the programme on migration decision. However, extent of participation in terms of number of days of work and earnings has a significant negative impact on short-term migration but not on longer duration ones. The findings lay emphasis on effective implementation in terms of asset creation, reduction in rationing of works and tackling delayed payments to enjoy its potential benefits.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act that guarantees employment of every rural household for 100 days has different progressive provisions to incentivise participation of women in the programme. Official data suggest that 47% of all MGNREGA workers are women. The extent to which the programme is inclusive of women, with a particular focus on sub-populations of women such as widows and mothers of young children who typically face serious constraints in the context of labour market participation, is examined in this study using data from the National Sample Survey. The study finds that while the MGNREGA has indeed been inclusive of women, the substantial variations both across states and the exclusion of vulnerable groups of women demand attention.

This study reports on a survey of 4,881 users of more than 4,100 works created under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in Maharashtra. It provides evidence that MGNREGA works support agriculture, and benefit a large number of small and marginal farmers. An overwhelming 90% of the respondents considered the works very useful or somewhat useful, while only 8% felt they were useless. Further, most works continue to be maintained and are in a good condition. Overall, this study suggests that the widespread perception that the MGNREGA does not create anything productive appears to be misplaced, although there is scope for improving the choice of works, their design, and their execution.

This paper presents the results of a survey of over 4100 works created under the Mahatma Gandhi
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and over 4800 randomly selected users across
100 villages in 20 districts in Maharashtra. It has two goals: the first was to verify the existence of the
assets and the second was to elicit user perceptions of the problems and benefits they associate with the
work. The survey indicates that 87% of the works exist and function and over 75% of them are directly
or indirectly related to agriculture. A bulk of the rest constitutes rural roads that connect habitations to
farms and provides access to agricultural markets. The study also finds that 92% of the randomly
selected users paper that their main occupation is farming; half of them are small and marginal
farmers, owning less than 1.6 hectares of land. An overwhelming 90% of respondents considered the
works very useful or somewhat useful; only 8% felt the works were useless. There is some evidence that
where people feel that have played a part in deciding the type of work, these are more likely to be
ranked as useful and well-maintained. Likewise, works on private lands tend to score better in terms of
perceived usefulness and in terms of present condition. Overall it appears that the works are supportive
of agriculture and of small and marginal farmers. There is however scope to improve the design of
assets and to have a more inclusive process of work selection.

The paper investigates prevalence of political clientelism in allocation of benefits under the rural employment guarantee program, currently implemented in India. Using survey data collected from some villages of West Bengal, it is found that households, which are politically active and supporters of the local ruling political party, are more likely to receive the benefits in terms of participation, number of days of work and earnings from the program. Qualitative evidence corroborates the findings. The study shows predominance of political favoritism under the program and lays emphasis on reducing rationing and enhancing awareness of the entitlements to curb this practice.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which guarantees employment of every rural household for 100 days, has different progressive provisions which incentivise higher participation of women in the programme. Official data suggest that 47% of all MGNREGA workers are women. This paper uses the National Sample Survey for the 68th employment-unemployment round (2011-12) to examine the performance of states in terms of participation and rationing of women in the programme relative to that of men. In addition, it documents these indicators from various sub-populations of women, including widows, mothers of young children, etc. who typically face serious constraints in the context of labour market participation. The study finds substantial variations both across states and sub populations implying the need for a differentiated policy focus across states to support women's access to and participation in the MGNREGA.

Using data from nationally representative employment and unemployment surveys, this article examines the inclusiveness of Indian economic growth by looking at the changes in socio-economic inequalities in regular employment over the period 1993–1994 to 2009–2010. Our findings reveal that, at the all India level, socio-economic inequalities in regular employment increased minutely during 1993–1994 to 2009–2010. However, the changes at the regional level are mixed. Regions of the North, Central and East show a decrease against an increase in Western and North Eastern regions. In the Southern region, the socio-economic inequalities in regular employment have remained almost same.

This paper assesses the impact of an information dissemination intervention on the local-level implementation of the rural public works program in India. One key feature of the intervention is to provide information to workers once their wages get credited into their accounts. Using administrative and survey data, its impact on delays in wage payments and days of work along with the awareness levels of the entitlements is evaluated. The findings indicate a substantial reduction in payment delays and in trips made for wage withdrawal, in addition to improvements in awareness. The decrease in the payment delays in the treated villages persists even beyond the intervention period. While a limited impact on work days is observed during the intervention, a significant increase in the post-intervention period is found. The findings substantiated through qualitative evidence provide a platform for an innovative and cost-effective intervention to improve the implementation of social protect...

Evaluation of Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programmes in a developing country context indicates a positive impact on increasing enrollment but finds mixed evidence on improving learning outcomes. Using representative rural household survey data, we evaluated one of the largest CCT programmes in India, the Kanyashree Prakalpa, implemented in the state of West Bengal from 2013. We examined the effect on adolescent female school enrollment and tested whether there were concomitant improvements in learning outcomes. Employing double difference, triple difference and synthetic control methods, we found significant positive effects on female school enrollment, even for children from villages without a secondary school. The enrollment increase in heterogeneous settings indicated that transfers from CCT programmes might outweigh supply side constraints like the travel costs of schooling. However, we found that enrollment gains, while associated with improvements in lower-order learning outcomes, were related to a significant decline in higher-order learning skills. Notably, improvements in higher-order learning were only found in schools with lower teacher absenteeism and better physical infrastructure. Our analysis suggests that, without complementary investments in learning amenities, CCT programmes might only redirect adolescent girls to school without greatly enhancing the learning skills that could have a significant impact on potential economic and social (in)security.

This paper seeks to assess the distribution of monthly per capita household earnings (MPCHE) in rural and urban areas of each state in comparison to all India distribution. The analysis is based on unit level data from Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) conducted by National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) in 2017-18. Our primary attention is on distribution of MPCHE with a secondary emphasis on source of earnings of households. Given the considerable interest in inequality, we also provide estimates of inequality in MPCHE at the state level and further disaggregated by rural and urban.

This is an independent report commissioned under the DFID Systematic Review Programme for South Asia. This material has been funded by South Asia Research Hub, Research and Evidence Division, Department for International Development, Government of UK.The contextual analysis summarises the available evidence related to effectiveness of public work programme interventions in the context of South Asian countries, specifically for Nepal. This findings may help in making decisions about the feasibility of different programme interventions by policy makers and practitioners.

Why do people engage in certain behavior. What are the effects of social expectations and perceptions of community behavior and beliefs on own behavior. Given that proper infant feeding practices are observable and have significant health impacts, we explore the relevance of these questions in the context of exclusive infant breastfeeding behavior using social norms theory. We make use of a primary survey of mothers of children below the age of two years in the Kayes and Sikasso region of Mali, which have a historically lower prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding. The findings from regression estimations, controlling for a host of potential confounding factors, indicate that expectations about the behavior of other community members can strongly predict individual exclusive breastfeeding. Beliefs about approval of the infant feeding behavior of the community though are found to be only modestly associated with it. In addition, mothers who hold false but positive beliefs about the co...

Arresting COVID infections requires community collective action that is difficult to achieve in a socially and economically diverse setting. Using district level data from India, we examine the effects of caste and religious fragmentation along with economic inequality on the growth rate of reported cases. The findings indicate positive effects of caste homogeneity while observing limited impact of economic inequality and religious homogeneity. However, the gains from higher caste homogeneity are seen to erode with the unlocking procedure after the nationwide lockdown. We find that community cohesion through caste effect is relatively dominant in rural areas even when mobility restrictions are withdrawn. Our findings indicate planners should prioritize public health interventions in caste-wise heterogeneous areas to compensate for the absence of community cohesion. The importance of our study lies in empirically validating the causal pathway between homogeneity and infection and pro...

In low- and middle-income countries, poor autonomy prevents women from making financial decisions, which may impact their access to improved sanitation facilities. Inadequate access to improved sanitation disproportionately affects women’s and children’s health and wellbeing. Although socio-cultural factors are known contributors to gender inequity, social beliefs that potentially motivate or dissuade women from making sanitation-related household decisions are not well understood. These beliefs may vary across settlement types. To empower more women to make sanitation-related decisions, the relevant socio-cultural norms and underlying social beliefs need to be addressed. In this mixed methods study, we explored women’s role in sanitation-related decision making in three settlement types, urban slums, peri-urban, and rural communities in Bihar. Trained qualitative researchers conducted six focus group discussions with women of two age groups: 18–30 years old, and 45–65 years old to ...

Compliance with measures like social distancing, hand-washing and wearing masks have emerged as the dominant strategy to combat health risk from the COVID-19 pandemic. These behaviors are often argued to be pro-social, where one must incur private cost to benefit or protect others. Using self-reported data across India (n=934) through online survey, we assess if changes in perceived community compliance can predict changes in individual compliance behavior, controlling for the potential confounders. We observe statistically significant and positive relationship between the two, even after accounting for omitted variable bias, plausibly allowing us to view the results from a plausible causal lens. Further, we find subsequent lockdowns such as the ones imposed in India, have a detrimental effect on individual compliance though the gains from higher perceived community compliance seems to offset this loss. We also find that sensitization through community can be particularly effective ...

Higher duration of programs that involve legal protection may entail gradual positive changes in social norms that can be leveraged by potential beneficiaries in their favor. This paper examines the heterogeneous impact of the duration of exposure to gender-neutral reforms in the inheritance law in India on two latent domains of women empowerment: intrinsic, which pertains to expansion of agency and instrumental which relates to ability to make decisions. The time lag between the year of the amendment in the respective states and the year of marriage generate exogenous variation in reform exposure across women. The findings indicate a significant non-linear increase in the instrumental as well as intrinsic empowerment. Importantly, improvements in education along with increase in the age of marriage and changes in family structure are found to be the potential channels that signal gradual relaxation of social norms and explain the higher returns to exposure on empowerment.

IntroductionInconsistent toilet usage is a continuing challenge in India. Despite the impact of social expectations on toilet usage, few programs and studies have developed theoretically grounded norms-centric behavior change interventions to increase toilet use in low-income settings. This protocol details the rationale and design of an ex-ante, parallel cluster-randomized trial evaluating the impact of a demand-side, norms-centric behavior change intervention on exclusive toilet use and maintenance in peri-urban Tamil Nadu, India.Methods and AnalysisFollowing two years of formative research, we developed an evidence-based norm-centric behavior change intervention called Nam Nalavazhvu (Tamil for “Our wellbeing”). The multi-level intervention aims to shift collective beliefs by shifting empirical expectations or beliefs about other relevant people’s sanitation practices. It also provides action-oriented information to aid individuals to set goals and overcome barriers to build, con...

Background Inconsistent toilet usage is a continuing challenge in India. Despite the impact of social expectations on toilet usage, few programs and studies have developed theoretically grounded norm-centric behavior change interventions to increase toilet use in low-income settings. Objective The objective of this paper is to detail the rationale and design of an ex ante, parallel cluster-randomized trial evaluating the impact of a demand-side, norm-centric behavior change intervention on exclusive toilet use and maintenance in peri-urban Tamil Nadu, India. Methods Following formative research, we developed an evidence-based norm-centric behavior change intervention called Nam Nalavazhvu (Tamil for “our well-being”). The multilevel intervention aims to improve toilet usage by shifting empirical expectations or beliefs about other relevant people’s sanitation practices. It also provides action-oriented information to aid individuals to set goals and overcome barriers to own, consist...

The study examines the effect of cooking fuel choice on educational outcomes of adolescent children in rural India. Using multiple large-scale nationally representative datasets, we observe household solid fuel usage to adversely impact school attendance, years of schooling and age-appropriate grade progression among children. This inference is robust to alternative ways of measuring educational outcomes, other datasets, specifications and estimation techniques. Importantly, the effect is found to be more pronounced for females in comparison to the males highlighting the gendered nature of the impact. On exploring possible pathways, we find that the direct time substitution on account of solid fuel collection and preparation can explain the detrimental educational outcomes that include learning outcomes as well, even though we are unable to reject the health channel. In the light of the micro and macro level vulnerabilities posed by the COVID-19 outbreak, the paper recommends interv...

Arresting COVID infections requires community collective action that is difficult to achieve in a socially and economically diverse setting. Using district level data from India, we examine the effects of caste and religious fragmentation along with economic inequality on the growth rate of reported cases. The findings indicate positive effects of caste homogeneity while observing limited impact of economic inequality and religious homogeneity. However, the gains from higher caste homogeneity are seen to erode with the unlocking procedure after the nationwide lockdown. We find that community cohesion through caste effect is relatively dominant in rural areas even when mobility restrictions are withdrawn. Our findings indicate planners should prioritize public health interventions in caste-wise heterogeneous areas to compensate for the absence of community cohesion. The importance of our study lies in empirically validating the causal pathway between homogeneity and infection and pro...

Using representative migration survey data from the Indian state of Kerala, this paper assesses the impact of transnational migration on social signaling through the consumption of visible goods. Using the plausibly exogenous variation in migration networks in the neighborhood and religious communities to account for the potential endogeneity, we find significant and positive effects on conspicuous consumption. In terms of the mechanisms, we put forward three possible channels. While we are unable to rule out the associated changes in preferences driving up the spending on status goods, we observe only modest effects of peer group spending due to higher status competition. A key channel that we propose through a theoretical framework is a potential information gap among permanent residents about the income levels of a migrant. This we argue can be leveraged by migrants to increase the visible consumption to gain higher status in the society.

Using data from the India Human Development Survey, this paper analyses the relationship between child disability and maternal work participation for India. The authors' findings suggest a significant positive relationship between child disability and the work participation of the urban mothers who are wives of household heads. These mothers are 1.27 times as likely to participate in labour market as mothers (wives in urban areas) without a disabled child. However, for the same mothers, child disability significantly affects the weekly work hours of those participating in the labour market in a negative manner with presence of a disabled child reducing the weekly work hours by 3.6 hours. For the rural mothers and the mothers in urban areas who are household heads, our findings do not suggest any significant association between child disabilities and their work participation (or weekly work hours).

This paper presents the results of a survey of over 4100 works created under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and over 4800 randomly selected users across 100 villages in 20 districts in Maharashtra. It has two goals: the first was to verify the existence of the assets and the second was to elicit user perceptions of the problems and benefits they associate with the work. The survey indicates that 87 of the works exist and function and over 75 of them are directly or indirectly related to agriculture. A bulk of the rest constitutes rural roads that connect habitations to farms and provides access to agricultural markets. The study also finds that 92 of the randomly selected users paper that their main occupation is farming; half of them are small and marginal farmers, owning less than 1.6 hectares of land. An overwhelming 90 of respondents considered the works very useful or somewhat useful; only 8 felt the works were useless. There is some eviden...