Human Development in India - NCAER

appendix ii 227will often require that we look jointly at residence and socioeconomicposition in the chapters that follow to sort outwhich aspects of human development are specifically relatedto urbanization and which are a result of greater affluence andeducation. Urban areas also differ on their caste and religiouscomposition. Forward castes and minority religions areespecially concentrated in urban areas. Dalits and, especially,Adivasis are more rural.IncomeThe IHDS is one of the first major Indian survey to measuredetailed income. The NSS measures consumption expendituresand the NFHS measures the ownership of consumergoods. The IHDS measured these too. Each provides asomewhat different aspect of economic position, but isclosely related. The details of their measurement and theirinter-relationships are described in Chapters 2 and 5. TheIHDS measure of income is summed across over 50 separatecomponents including wages and salaries, net farm income,family business net income, property, and pension incomes.The average Indian household had an annual income ofRs 27,857 in 2004. But because some households earnedmuch more than this median, the mean was Rs 47,804. Forall tables, households are divided into five quintiles withcutting points at 14,000, 22,950, 36,098, and 69,000. Asmall number of households (2 per cent) reported negativeor very low incomes because of agricultural or businesslosses. Although these households are undergoing currenteconomic distress, in many other ways (for example,consumer goods owned, educational levels, and so on) theyappear more like moderate income households rather thanpoor households in the bottom quintile. They have, therefore,been excluded from the income tables, but are included inother analyses.The income quintiles used throughout these reportsdo not vary across urban and rural areas, or across states,and, consequently, they do not adjust for price differences.Urban–rural price differences can be as large as 15 per cent.Household EducationMany of the human development outcomes described in theprevious chapters benefit the entire household. An indoorwater tap, access to nearby medical clinics, and connectionsto government officials are resources the entire household cantake advantage of. To see how these advantages are related toeducational levels, the tables use a measure of the highestadult (that is, age 21 or older) education in the household,when appropriate. 4 The same schooling categories are usedas for individual education, but the distribution is higher.Only a quarter of Indian households have no adult withoutany formal education, but 37 per cent have an adult who hasmatriculated, 10th Standard, or gone further. At the top, 13per cent of households have an adult with a college degree.This measure of household education is associated with thesame advantages as individual education. Urban residence,higher incomes, and forward castes are more commonin well educated households. Note that the householdeducational attainment is greater than the individual onesince household level education is based on highest educationfor any household member.Social GroupsPerhaps no other country in the world offers such a richdiversity of religions, castes, ethnic, and linguistic identities,as it is found in India. Any useable grouping for a reviewof human development is bound to ignore importantdistinctions that the people themselves would never overlook.The tables here follow a six-fold classification:1. Forward Castes2. Other Backward Castes (OBC)3. Dalits (Scheduled Castes)4. Adivasis (Scheduled Tribes)5. Muslims6. Other Minority Religions (Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists,Jains)The obvious question for such a scheme is where one classifiesMuslim OBCs, Christian Adivasis, Sikh Dalits, and othergroups, that easily fit more than one category. Muslim OBCsdiffer from Hindu OBCs and from other Muslims on mosthuman development outcomes, and, likewise, for ChristianAdivasis, Sikh Dalits, and other groups. Independentreligion and caste classifications would avoid these ambiguities,but would create too many categories for the compactpresentation needed here. The compromise result is this sixcategory scheme described in Figure AII.1. More detailedclassifications are available from the public data for analystsrequiring more precision. Our construction of socio-religiouscategories has two major implications that must be kept inmind. First, 2,014 Muslim families, who classify themselvesas OBCs form about 4.6 per cent of the total population,are included with Muslims rather than OBCs. Second, theinclusion of Christian, Sikh, and Buddhist Scheduled Castefamilies with Dalits and Adivasis, according to their selfclassification,reduces the group classified as other minorityreligions from 6.29 per cent of the total population to 2.70per cent (Figure AII.1).4In households without any adult 21 years or older, the highest education is substituted.