This paper analyzes the determinants of rural poverty in India, contrasting the situation of the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Schedule Tribe (ST) households with the non-scheduled population. The incidence of poverty among SC and ST households is significantly higher than non-scheduled households. Using a probit decomposition analysis, we decompose the difference in the poverty rates between the scheduled castes (or tribes) and non-scheduled households into a part explained by the differences in characteristics and a part explained by the differences in probit coefficients. The paper finds that for SC households, differences in characteristics explain the gap in poverty rates more than differences in coefficients; while for ST households, it is the reverse. Differences in educational attainment explain about one quarter of the poverty gap for both social groups. Occupational structure strongly matters in determining the poverty gap for both SC and ST, as does differences in returns to individual occupations. While poverty rates are not very different between SC and ST households, the analysis suggests that the underlying factors for the higher incidence of poverty in these social groups are to a large extent different.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Rutgers University, Department of Economics in its series Departmental Working Papers with number
200225.
Find related papers by JEL classification: I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty O12 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)