Rethinking Social Safety Nets in a Changing Society: Evidence from the India Human Development Survey Sonalde Desai Debasis Barik Pallavi Choudhuri Bijay Chouhan Om Prakash Sharma Sharan Sharma Dinesh Kumar Tiwari

With a growing economy and declining poverty, India faces a curious challenge in providing a social safety net to its citizens. Using data from three rounds of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), collected in 2004-05, 2011-12, and 2022- 24, this paper shows that households...   Read More

Can I Interview Her? Gatekeeping in a Telephone Survey of Female Migrants in India Sharan Sharma Bijay Chouhan Om Prakash Sharma Jaya Koti Sonalde Desai

This paper explores ‘gatekeeping’, the phenomenon where access to a sample person in the household is controlled by another person. Gatekeeping of female persons is especially an issue in societies governed by gendered social norms. It can increase survey error by reducing response rates and...   Read More

Gendered time use, body mass index, and well-being among adolescents in resource-poor settings in India: The adverse role of domesticity Dibyasree Ganguly Kriti Vikram

We investigated how adolescents' time allocation across daily activities influences their body mass index and well-being by paying explicit attention to gender and activities relevant to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We hypothesized that the inequitable domestic burden shouldered by girls adversely affects their health...   Read More

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