Affirmative action, education and gender: Evidence from India

This paper studies the impact of India's affirmative action policies for Scheduled Castes on educational attainment. Using a plausibly exogenous variation, I show that affirmative action increases educational attainment. The main improvements are in literacy and secondary schooling and there is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of development economics 2019-01, Vol.136, p.51-70
Main Author: Cassan, Guilhem
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Affirmative action
Education
Gender
Identity
India
Intersectionality
Quota
Scheduled caste
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Summary:This paper studies the impact of India's affirmative action policies for Scheduled Castes on educational attainment. Using a plausibly exogenous variation, I show that affirmative action increases educational attainment. The main improvements are in literacy and secondary schooling and there is only small evidence of increases in higher education. The benefits are not distributed evenly across genders: only males show an increase in education (in literacy, primary and secondary completion). Individuals at the intersection of discriminated groups (low caste and female) may not be benefiting from these policies. •I show that educational attainment in India increase thanks to affirmative action.•This is driven by increases in primary and secondary schooling.•The distribution of this increase differs across genders.•Males gain but females are not affected.
ISSN:0304-3878
1872-6089
DOI:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.10.001