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Returns to Education in India

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  • Fulford, Scott

Abstract

In India both men and women with more education live in households with greater consumption per capita. Yet aggregating across age cohorts and states, an extra year of education brings male cohorts only 4% more consumption and provides no additional consumption for female cohorts. This result is robust to: (1) accounting for survey measurement error, (2) different measures of household consumption and composition, (3) allowing returns to differ by state and school quality, and (4) age misreporting. The only area with substantial returns is entering into regular wage work which still employs only a small fraction of the population.

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  • Fulford, Scott, 2014. "Returns to Education in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 434-450.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:59:y:2014:i:c:p:434-450
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.02.005
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    10. Dr Mohammad Rafiqul Islam & Dr Nicholas Sim, 2021. "Education and Food Consumption Patterns: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Indonesia," Papers 2109.08124, arXiv.org.
    11. Schwieren, Christiane & Klonner, Stefan & Pal, Sumantra, 2020. "Equality of the Sexes and Gender Differences in Competition: Evidence from Three Traditional Societies," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224523, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Klaus Deininger & Songqing Jin & Hari K. Nagarajan & Fang Xia, 2019. "Inheritance Law Reform, Empowerment, and Human Capital Accumulation: Second-Generation Effects from India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(12), pages 2549-2571, December.
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    14. Chen, Jie & Kanjilal-Bhaduri, Sanghamitra & Pastore, Francesco, 2022. "Updates on Returns to Education in India: Analysis using PLFS 2018-19 Data," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1016, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    15. Nakajima, Maki & Kijima, Yoko & Otsuka, Keijiro, 2018. "Is the learning crisis responsible for school dropout? A longitudinal study of Andhra Pradesh, India," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 245-253.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Asia; India; returns to education; school quality; aggregate versus individual returns; age misreporting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

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