Occupational disparity among Indian social groups and its persistence: some recent evidence

Anjan Ray Chaudhury () and Madhabendra Sinha ()
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Anjan Ray Chaudhury: Durgapur Government College
Madhabendra Sinha: Visva-Bharati University

SN Business & Economics, 2025, vol. 5, issue 11, 1-34

Abstract: Abstract The underlying views of intergenerational mobility can be used to examine the persistence of inequality across well-defined groups in any society. Accordingly, in a previous study, we proposed two group-specific scalar measures for analyzing the perseverance of group disparity in occupational status. In this study, we propose two aggregate scalar measures for assessing the persistence of occupational disparity from one generation to the next. We apply the group-specific and aggregate scalar measures to investigate the persistence of occupational disparity across the Indian social groups defined by caste. For the fulfillment of this objective, we use three unit-level datasets provided by three quinquennial employment and unemployment surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO, 1983, 1993-94, and 2004-05), and the Periodic Labour Force Survey (Year: 2023-24). Findings reveal that during the last few decades, the relative strength of downward mobility has consistently been stronger for disadvantaged social groups than that of socially wealthy/advantaged social groups. Consequently, the inter-group employment disparity between social groups has increased during the period of interest.

Keywords: Upward mobility; Downward mobility; Persistence of inequality; Group inequality; Occupational status; Social groups; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s43546-025-00937-1

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