Does Employment Quota Explain Occupational Choice Among Disadvantaged Groups? A Natural Experiment from India

Nishith Prakash and Larry Howard

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper examines the effect of a federally-mandated public sector employment quota policy for minorities on their occupational choice. We utilize multiple logit models to estimate the effect of the policy on the choice between a high, middle, or low-skill public sector occupation during the 1980s and 1990s. The main findings are, first, the policy has a significant effect on the choice of occupation for both groups. The policy increases the probability of the scheduled caste group choosing high-skill occupations and decreases the probability of choosing middle-skill occupations. In contrast, the policy decreases the probability of the scheduled tribe group choosing high-skill occupations and increases their probability of choosing low-skill occupations. Second, the influence of the policy is interrelated with an individual's years of schooling. Third, we find evidence of employment quota externalities in that a policy targeted at one group affects the occupational choice of the other group. Overall, the results suggest that federally-mandated employment quotas do change occupational choice for the target disadvantaged groups and contribute to their improved socio-economic standing.

Keywords: Occupational choice; Skill; Caste; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J61 J62 O10 O2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-11-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-dev and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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