Raising the value of women’s time for a transition to clean fuels
A majority of women in rural India continue to use traditional fuels, adding to the time that they devote to domestic work. In this post, Farzana Afridi discusses findings from a survey in Madhya Prad...
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Farzana Afridi
04 June, 2025
- Articles
Girls in tech: Evaluating IIT’s Supernumerary Seats Scheme
Introduced in 2018, the Supernumerary Seats Scheme seeks to improve gender ratios among undergraduate engineering students at IITs, which have historically been male dominated. This article shows that...
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Nandana Sengupta
Swati Sharma
21 May, 2025
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What is behind the recent rise in women’s workforce participation?
Women’s workforce participation in India increased from 32% in 2022-23 to 37% in 2023-24, with the rise concentrated in rural areas. This article demonstrates that this significant change may be dri...
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Priyanshi Chaudhary
Avanindra Nath Thakur
13 May, 2025
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Is it safe? Threat of sexual violence and women’s decision to work
Despite significant improvements in women's educational attainment and reduced fertility rates, India’s female labour force participation (FLFP) remains among the lowest globally. Using nationally r...
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Tanika Chakraborty
Nafisa Lohawala
06 September, 2021
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Countering violence against women with awareness creation and self-defence training
The 2019 National Crime Records Bureau report shows a 7.3% increase, compared to 2018, in violence against women, with one in three women being subject to physical, emotional, or sexual violence. In t...
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Chitwan Lalji
Debayan Pakrashi
Sarani Saha
Soubhagya Sahoo
20 August, 2021
- Perspectives
The escalating financial burden of child births
Data from the 2019-20 National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 show that in several states, the proportion of institutional deliveries remain below the national average, with high out-of-pocket expendit...
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Prem Shankar Mishra
T.S. Syamala
30 July, 2021
- Perspectives
Evolution of dowry in rural India: Evidence from 1960-2008
Despite being illegal since 1961, dowry continues to be a widespread phenomenon in rural India. In the first of a two-part series, this article tracks the evolution of dowry during 1960-2008 across st...
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S Anukriti
Sungoh Kwon
Nishith Prakash
01 July, 2021
- Articles
How dowry influences household decisions in rural India
It is widely believed that Indian parents start saving for dowry as soon as a daughter is born. In the second of a two-part series on dowry in rural India, this article examines how dowry influences h...
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S Anukriti
Sungoh Kwon
Nishith Prakash
01 July, 2021
- Articles
India’s ‘missing girls’: Women’s education and declining child sex-ratios
Although women’s education has been proposed as a solution to the persistent issue of ‘missing girls’ in India, studies have reached contradictory conclusions on the impact of female education o...
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Pradeep Chhibber
Francesca R. Jensenius
Susan L Ostermann
30 June, 2021
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Lineage norms and women’s political participation
While reservation for local political representation of women has made major headway, this has not addressed the structural problems that prevent the full incorporation of women into politics. Based ...
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Rachel Brulé
Nikhar Gaikwad
23 June, 2021
- Articles
Reducing intimate partner violence: Laying the groundwork with young males
Two out of five ever-married women in Bihar have experienced marital violence. Based on a study of ‘Do Kadam Barabari Ke Ore’ – a programme imparting gender-transformative life skills to young ...
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K.G. Santhya
A.J. Francis Zavier
02 June, 2021
- Notes from the Field
Fruits of liberation? Women’s work participation and adoption of household appliances
Does increase in women’s work participation lead to greater adoption of household appliances, or is it the other way round? To address this question, this article analyses US data from the Second Wo...
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Gautam Bose
Tarun Jain
Sarah Walker
28 May, 2021
- Articles
Does gender (still) determine destiny in India?
Emerging evidence of convergence in educational attainment between girls and boys seems at odds with a large body of research on gender-based discrimination against girls in India. In this context, th...
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M. Shahe Emran
Hanchen Jiang
Forhad Shilpi
21 May, 2021
- Articles
Sex workers, stigma, and self-image: Evidence from Kolkata’s brothels
Being poor or marginalised often brings stigma, which may distort a person’s self-image, inducing sub-optimal choices and resulting in a psychological poverty trap. Based on a study conducted in Kol...
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Sayantan Ghosal
Smarajit Jana
Anandi Mani
Sandip Mitra
Sanchari Roy
13 May, 2021
- Articles
Women and work: How much does measurement matter?
Female labour force participation in India has been on the decline – dropping from an already low 29% in 2004-05 to 17% in 2017-18. However, the extent of women’s economic participation depends o...
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Milan Vaishnav
10 May, 2021
- Articles
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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...
Pallabi Das
Saswata Ghosh
18 April, 2023
- 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...
Guilhem Cassan
Daniel Keniston
Tatjana Kleineberg
18 November, 2022
- Articles
Measuring caste inequality across Indian states
Although recent research on inequality shows that upper castes have the highest levels of material well-being, there is a wide variation in caste inequality across India. Measuring three forms of cast...
Poulomi Chakrabarti
13 September, 2021
- Articles