To stay or grow? Migration patterns and child growth in rural Bihar, India Reshma Roshania Solveig A. Cunningham, Aritra Das, Tanusree Bag, Rakesh Giri, Guntur Sai Mala, Melissa F. Young, Sridhar Srikantiah, Tanmay Mahapatra, Usha Ramakrishnan

While the dominant patterns of migration for livelihood among the poor in India are rural-to-rural and circular, literature on the health implications of child migration has largely focused on rural-to-urban, permanent movement. We compared child growth across three migration typologies rural Bihar: circular migrant families...   Read More

Affirmative action and private education expenditure by disadvantaged groups: evidence from India Athira Vinod

Under the Right to Education Act (2009), the Indian government mandated private schools to reserve 25% of primary school places for socioeconomically disadvantaged children. This study examines the policy’s spillover effect on private schooling costs. Using household survey data and a difference-in-differences approach, it compares...   Read More

Gone and forgotten? Predictors of birth history omissions in India Sharan Sharma Sonalde Desai Debasis Barik Om Prakash Sharma

Background: Fertility histories are subject to measurement errors such as incorrect birth dates, incorrect birth orders, incorrect sex, and omissions. These errors can bias demographic estimates such as fertility rates and child mortality rates. Objective: We focus on births missing in fertility histories. We estimate...   Read More

Chronic Absenteeism and Its Impact on the Learning Outcomes of Primary Grade Students in India Charu Jain Ruchi Jain

This paper addresses one of the most critical yet overlooked problems of excessive absence of students in primary grades in India. Considering the intuitive link between students’ attendance and achievements, this paper empirically investigates the incidence and causes of chronic absenteeism while examining the variations...   Read More

Urban Exclusion: Rethinking Social Protection in the Wake of the Pandemic in India Pallavi Choudhuri Santanu Pramanik Sonalde Desai

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the consequent nationwide lockdown in India that began on March 25, 2020, caused a major disruption in the labour market, leading to the widespread loss of livelihoods and food insecurity. The findings from a telephonic survey of a representative sample of...   Read More