Human Development in India - NCAER

introduction 5the agricultural stagnation of the 1990s has had a far greaterimpact on Adivasis than on other communities, contributingto the income disparities reported in Chapter 2. Disproportionateregional growth further exacerbates these inequalitiesbecause Adivasis are far more likely to be rural and live inpoorer states like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and MadhyaPradesh, than in the prosperous Punjab or Haryana.Nevertheless, an important theme that emerges from thechapters that follow is how deep regional cleavages are, evencompared with caste and income inequalities. While it is wellknown that some states are far more economically developedthan others, this general economic observation misses muchof the nature of interstate disparities. Chapter 7 shows thata poor, illiterate Dalit labourer in Cochi or Chennai is likelyto be healthier, and certainly has better access to medicalcare than a college graduate, forward caste, large landownerin rural Uttar Pradesh. Social inequalities matter, but theirimportance is overwhelmed for many aspects of humandevelopment by state and rural–urban differences.ContextsThe extent of these regional inequalities justifies the attentionthat the IHDS placed on investigating the social andeconomic contexts in which the 41,554 households foundthemselves. The IHDS recognized that individuals exist ina web and sought to examine how individuals, families, andcommunities are linked to the world around them. Consequently,we focused on gender roles and norms when tryingto understand gender disparities in Indian society; explore theway in which different families are linked to social networksand institutions when studying inequalities between diversesocial groups; and tried to focus on institutional structuresand linkages shaping the relationship of villages and states inan increasingly global world.INTERRELATIONSHIPSWe argue that it is time for the development discourse to paygreater attention to the politics of culture and the culture ofpolitics. The politics of culture is perhaps most clearly seen inthe discourse surrounding gender in Indian society. Genderinequality, in different markers of human development,particularly the imbalance in the juvenile sex ratio, is wellrecognized in literature. However, role of cultural traditions,in creating a climate within which these inequalities emerge,have received little attention. In this study, we examinedifferences in intra-family relationships across different partsof India and different communities, and observe far greateregalitarian gender relations among Adivasis and a greaterwillingness of parents in southern India to rely on daughtersfor social and financial support. We argue that it would besurprising if more favourable gender ratios among Adivasisand in south India were not related to these differences ingender roles. We also suggest that instead of thinking ofculture as being immutably fossilized, it would make senseto see it as a process that is being constantly modified and tounderstand that public policies have a broad impact on howtraditions are interpreted and modified. Results on women’semployment provide an interesting example by showing thatgender inequalities in salaries are far greater in the privatethan in the public sector. The culture of politics and thedifferential ability of states to ensure a climate within whichtheir residents live healthy and productive lives is a recurringtheme throughout this study.In addition to introduction and conclusion, this monographis divided into four sections. The first section focuseson livelihoods, with chapters exploring the level and compositionof household income and poverty; agriculture andaccess to means of production; employment patterns andwages; and standard of living. The second section focuseson education and health, with a focus on assessing currentstatus as well as the availability and cost of educational andhealth services. The third section focuses on the well-beingof vulnerable populations: children, the elderly, and women.The fourth section is unique in its focus on the linkagesbetween individuals and households and the broader socialstructures. Chapters in this section include analysis of socialintegration of the households into broader communitynetworks; the level of village development in an increasinglyglobal world; and the policy responses in the form of socialsafety net provisions. Our survey methodology and sampleare discussed in Appendices I and II. Some highlights arediscussed in Box 1.1.In trying to provide a holistic view of the daily livesof Indian families, this monograph covers a broad terrain.However, many chapters contain similar themes. Chapterson income, agriculture, and employment suggest that whileIndia remains overwhelmingly rural, with nearly 72 per centof the Indian population still residing in villages, stagnation inagricultural productivity has found an echo in the decliningimportance of farming in the household economy. Although53 per cent of the rural households engage in farming and57 per cent engage in raising livestock, only 20 per cent of thehouseholds draw all their income from agriculture. Nearly27 per cent of rural males work in the non-farm sector anda further 21 per cent combine own-account farming/careof live stock/agricultural wage labour with non-farm work.Salaried work, particularly in the public sector, remains atthe top of the job ladder. Salaried public sector workers earnan average of Rs 6,980 per month as compared with salariedworkers in the private sector who barely earn Rs 4,569 permonth, if in a permanent job and Rs 2,365, if in a temporaryjob. All of them are better off than the manual labourers,who earn only Rs 50–80 per day and are lucky if they canfind about 200 days of employment in a year.