Is Education the Panacea for Economic Deprivation of Muslims? Evidence from Wage Earners in India, 1987–2005

Sumon Bhaumik and Manisha Chakrabarty ()

No 3232, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Few researchers have examined the nature and determinants of earnings differentials among religious groups, and none has been undertaken in the context of conflict-prone multi-religious societies like the one in India. We address this lacuna in the literature by examining the differences in the average (log) earnings of Hindu and Muslim wage earners in India, during the 1987-2005 period. Our results indicate that education differences between Hindu and Muslim wage earners, especially differences in the proportion of wage earners with tertiary education, are largely responsible for the differences in the average (log) earnings of the two religious groups across the years. By contrast, differences in the returns to education do not explain the aforementioned difference in average (log) earnings. In conclusion, we discuss some policy implications.

Keywords: earnings gap; decomposition; religion; education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I28 J15 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2007-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-dev, nep-edu, nep-hrm and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published in: Journal of Asian Economics, 2009, 20 (2), 137-149

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp3232.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Is education the panacea for economic deprivation of Muslims?: Evidence from wage earners in India, 1987-2005 (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3232

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().