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International Women’s Day 2025: Towards equality and empowerment

  • Symposium

Can job ad language help explain the gender gap in the Indian labour market?

Women applying for jobs tend to earn a lot less than men of the same age and education qualifications. Understanding the factors contributing to this disparity is crucial for addressing gender inequal...

  • Articles

Fighting gender inequality through mobility: Assessing Delhi’s ‘Pink Ticket’ scheme

To address gender inequities in mobility, Delhi launched a fare-free bus travel scheme for women in 2019. Based on a survey of female passengers in the city, Nishant and Archana highlight positive eff...

  • Notes from the Field

Reporting of gender-based violence: Why public activism and dialogue matter

The recent case of an on-duty female doctor being brutally raped and murdered in a Kolkata hospital, has sparked nation-wide protests and yet again raised serious questions and concerns around women...

  • Articles
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Affirmative action in credit markets: Can it enhance minorities’ welfare?

In 2009, as part of a Government of India programme to improve the welfare of religious minorities, commercial banks were directed to increase credit to these groups. This article finds that the polic...

  • Articles

Analysing gender bias in school textbooks in India

If we want girls’ education to help build gender equality, a basic first step is ensuring we are not giving children sexist textbooks. This article analyses gender bias in school textbooks in India ...

  • Articles

Paternalistic discrimination against women in the labour market

Women in many low-income countries are often excluded from the labour market. This article proposes a new explanation in the form of paternalistic discrimination – the preferential hiring of men to ...

  • Articles

Harnessing machine learning to combat domestic violence in India

One in three women globally will endure a form of domestic abuse in their lifetimes – with the prevalence being even higher in South Asian countries such as India. Given the complexity of identifyin...

  • Perspectives

Beneath the colours: Unveiling Holi's impact on violence against women

While social norms are considered important to the issue of violence against women (VAW), there is little research on how norms impact VAW in public places. Analysing police data from Bihar, this arti...

  • Articles

Can conversations about minorities reduce discrimination? Evidence from anti-transgender discrimination in Chennai

Discriminatory behaviour is known to adversely impact equity and efficiency in a range of economic and social domains. In the context of discrimination against transgender people in urban Chennai, thi...

  • Articles

Female leadership in corporate India: Firm performance and culture

Under the Companies Act, 2013, all listed firms in India are required to have at least one woman on their board. This article finds that having at least one woman on board leads to better economic per...

  • Articles

Forced male sterilisation and violence against women: Evidence from ‘Emergency India’

During 1975-1977, the Government of India introduced a programme involving forced sterilisation of men, in order to achieve population control as a poverty alleviation measure. Leveraging the varying ...

  • Articles

Soil characteristics, women’s workforce participation and intra-household consumption distribution

When women’s participation in agriculture increases relative to men, does the intra-household distribution of consumption become more gender-equitable? Is there a positive impact on children’s acc...

  • Articles

How social norms hold women back: A look at recent evidence

In light of India’s low female labour force participation rate, as a follow up to International Women’s Day, I4I Deputy Managing Editor Nikita Mujumdar highlights a selection of economic research ...

  • Perspectives

Should girls be ‘controlled’? Opinions among young boys and parents in Bihar

The practice of child marriage among girls continues to be common in Bihar. In this note, Priyadarshini, Joshi and Bhattacharya present findings from their survey of boys and parents, wherein they con...

  • Notes from the Field

Mahila Samakhya: Women’s education through empowerment

While girls are now at par with boys in school enrolment, they continue to lag behind in terms of the number of years spent in formal education. In this context, this article assesses the impact of th...

  • Articles

Recent Contributors

Karan

Karan Bhasin

University at Albany, SUNY

Surjit

Surjit Bhalla

International Monetary Fund

Tirthatanmoy

Tirthatanmoy Das

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

I4I

I4I Team

Ideas for India

Kanika

Kanika Mahajan

Ashoka University

Zahra

Zahra Siddique

University of Bristol

Sugat

Sugat Chaturvedi

Ahmedabad University

Nishant

Nishant .

Independent researcher

View all Contributors

Most Popular Social Identity Posts

Hindu-Muslim fertility differentials in India: An update

Building on past research, Saswata Ghosh and Pallabi Das estimate the state- and district-level fertility differentials between Hindus and Muslims using data from the latest round of the NFHS. They sh...

  • Articles

A division of labourers: Caste identity and efficiency in India

Castes in India are closely associated with certain occupations and determine the jobs done by millions. This study uses a new dataset to show that a large proportion of workers still work in their ca...

  • Articles

Sex ratios and religion in India and South Asia

In South Asia, low child sex ratios are increasingly an isolated Indian phenomenon. Within India, child sex ratios are ‘normal’ among Christians and Muslims but much lower among Hindus, Sikhs, and...

  • Articles