This post presents our monthly curation of developments in the policy landscape – highlighting I4I content pertaining to the widespread negative effects of climate change and what can be done to mitigate global warming; how uncertainty around immigration policies impacts job markets; improving students’ learning outcomes via evidence-based policy innovations, and closing digital gender gaps to achieve faster economic growth.

Too hot for comfort

Ten days into the New Year, there was bad news on the climate front. A Report from the Europe Space Agency’s Copernicus Climate Change Service stated that 2024 became the first year to have global average temperatures exceeding pre-industrial levels by 1.6°C – thereby breaching the (preferred) target of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord to limit global warming in the 21^st century to 1.5°C. While temperatures may fluctuate on account of natural patterns such as El Niño, breaches of 1.5°C for a month or a year are “early signs of getting perilously close to exceeding the long-term limit” (United Nations Environment Programme) – threatening the liveability of our planet. 

The adverse impacts of climate change range from greater frequency and intensity of wildfires in the United States, to reduced earnings of informal workers in India who make their living outdoors and also lack climate protection in their dwellings. Presenting his research at IGC’s India Sustainable Growth Conference at the London School of Economics in May 2024, E. Somanathan (Indian Statistical Institute) emphasised the impact of higher minimum temperatures at night, which prevent workers from getting a good night’s sleep, leading to fatigue and illness. 

To combat climate change, there is an urgent need to reduce carbon emissions, which was the key focus of the 3^rd Ashok Kotwal Memorial Lecture delivered by Rohini Pande (Yale University) in Delhi in December 2024. Noting that the Paris Agreement temperature target requires moving towards net zero carbon emissions at the global level by 2050, Prof. Pande contended that climate justice warrants the need for richer countries to achieve net negative carbon emissions. To reduce overall emissions, she underlined the importance of avoided emissions, such as by protecting forests in low-income countries. In terms of mechanisms, Prof. Pande focused on ‘voluntary carbon markets’, where carbon offset credits are traded – discussing the current issues with these markets and the kind of institutional reforms that are needed. She concluded by making a case for ultimately having novel compliance markets with voluntary participation from Global North companies and developers of carbon projects in the Global South. A video of the lecture may be viewed here.    

H1-B: Will he, or won’t he?

In November last year, when Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, I4I’s Policy Roundup revisited two research studies on the H1-B visa¹ and the role that the programme has played in the growth of the IT sector across the US and India. Following Trump’s oath of office this month, it remains unclear how high-skilled immigration into the US will play out during his term. On the one hand, tech allies of the 47^th US President believe that the visa programme enables US companies to access trained foreign employees, and on the other hand, Trump’s far-right supporters are of the view that it takes jobs away from Americans. 

Against this backdrop, it is instructive to look at a study by Chaurey, Mahajan and Tomar (2024), wherein jobs data from India is analysed from the period around Trump’s first victory in the US presidential elections in 2016. It is seen that increased uncertainty around US immigration policies – without any actual change in visa quotas and procedures – caused firms with a high H1-B visa dependence to relocate jobs from the US to India. According to the empirical analysis, for an average firm having 20.9 US-based vacancies, India-based vacancies increased by 15.8 and US-based vacancies declined by 4.1. Even though the intention of making the policy more restrictive is to promote domestic employment in the US, the rhetoric around it can inadvertently cause offshoring of jobs. 

The 3Rs…and technology

The much-awaited Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 was released earlier this week. A notable finding is that reading levels among children in elementary grades in government schools, which had fallen in 2022, have made a recovery.² In terms of arithmetic levels, there has been a substantial rise in both government and private schools.³ ASER Director Wilima Wadhwa attributes the improvement to the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020 and its focus on foundational skills. 

Among the key aspects of NEP is that it places teachers “at the centre of the fundamental reforms in the education system”. Although teacher effort is known to be an important determinant of student learning, surveys show that this is not what the teachers themselves believe. In this context, Jalnidh Kaur (2024) conducted a randomised experiment involving a psycho-social intervention targeted at teachers in a rural school chain in North India. She finds that teachers exposed to the intervention exhibit greater confidence in their ability to raise student learning and exert more effort within and outside the classroom – leading to better student performance. Kaur recommends incorporating behavioural elements like teacher motivation in the design of professional development programmes for teachers, alongside curriculum-related and pedagogy training. More generally, evidence-based policy innovations in education can help strengthen student learning, including in lagging states. 

ASER 2024 also highlights gender gaps in access to and ownership of smartphones as well as in digital literacy.⁴ In the 14-16 years old age group, 36.2% of boys report owning their own smartphone, in contrast to 26.9% of girls. While 85.5% of boys in the 14-16 years age group report knowing how to use a smartphone, the figure is about six percentage points lower for girls. When asked to carry out digital tasks on a smartphone, such as browsing for information, boys outperformed girls – except in the case of some southern states. In her recent I4I post, Isha Gupta has argued that, given India’s services-led growth, the digital gender divide prevents women from fully exploiting work opportunities in ICT (information and communication technologies) and also slows down structural transformation in the economy. Hence, addressing gender gaps in technology can benefit not only women’s work but economic growth more broadly. 

Notes:

1. H1-B visa is a non-immigrant visa allowing US companies to hire foreign workers for specialty jobs such as in IT.
2. For instance, the proportion of Standard V children in government schools who can read a Standard II level text fell from 44.2% in 2018 to 38.5% in 2022, and then rose to 44.8% in 2024.
3. For instance, the proportion of Standard III children who are able to at least do a numerical subtraction problem fell from 28.2% in 2018 to 25.9% in 2022, and then increased to 33.7% in 2024.
4. This is the first time ASER has measured digital literacy at the national level.