IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cde/cdewps/280.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Stigma or Red Tape- Roadblocks in the Use of Affirmative Action

Author

Listed:
  • Ashwini Deshpande

    (Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics)

Abstract

Affirmative action in India is largely caste-based and takes the form of quotas or reservations of seats in public institutions of higher education, government jobs and elected positions. Using a mixed methods research design, this paper examines whether and to what extent, additional stigmatization adversely affects the use of reservations for higher education or jobs. The quantitative analysis is based on a primary survey conducted by the author in the city of Delhi in 2014-15. The empirical analysis focuses on differences in perception of additional stigma of affirmative action between two groups- individuals from the Scheduled Castes (SCs) or Dalits, who belong to castes that are already highly stigmatized, to those from Other Backward Classes (OBCs) who belong to castes and communities that might be low-ranked, but not necessarily stigmatized. The results indicate that a greater proportion of SCs use reservations at least once as compared to OBCs, and a higher score in Class XII (the school leaving examination) increases the probability that individuals will avail of reservations. As a reason behind the non-use of reservations, between 9 and 16% of the non-users cite stigma as a reason. Overall, bureaucratic red tape and lack of information constitute much more substantial reasons for the non-use of reservations compared to stigma. Non-use of quotas due to possible additional stigmatization is a bigger factor for OBCs compared to SCs. The paper also contains qualitative accounts based on in-depth interviews of 61 individuals, who got into college on reserved seats, and successfully completed their chosen course of study. These detailed accounts give insights into institutional barriers that pose challenges to the full assimilation of affirmative action beneficiaries, as well as highlight the multiple layers of disadvantage that they battle with.

Suggested Citation

  • Ashwini Deshpande, 2017. "Stigma or Red Tape- Roadblocks in the Use of Affirmative Action," Working papers 280, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:cde:cdewps:280
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cdedse.org/pdf/work280.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deshpande, Ashwini & Weisskopf, Thomas E., 2014. "Does Affirmative Action Reduce Productivity? A Case Study of the Indian Railways," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 169-180.
    2. Bertrand, Marianne & Hanna, Rema & Mullainathan, Sendhil, 2010. "Affirmative action in education: Evidence from engineering college admissions in India," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 16-29, February.
    3. Surendrakumar Bagde & Dennis Epple & Lowell Taylor, 2016. "Does Affirmative Action Work? Caste, Gender, College Quality, and Academic Success in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(6), pages 1495-1521, June.
    4. Sharma, Smriti, 2015. "Caste-based crimes and economic status: Evidence from India," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 204-226.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mosse, David, 2018. "Caste and development: Contemporary perspectives on a structure of discrimination and advantage," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 422-436.
    2. Sugata Bag & Suman Seth & Barnali Basak, 2023. "Heterogeneous effect of the Indian affirmative action: The role of caste certificates," Working papers 339, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    3. Ashwini Deshpande, 2016. "Double jeopardy? Caste, affirmative action, and stigma," WIDER Working Paper Series 071, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Ashwini Deshpande & Rajesh Ramachandran, 2016. "The Changing Contours of Intergroup Disparities and the Role of Preferential Policies in a Globalizing World- Evidence from India," Working papers 267, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    5. Ashwini Deshpande, 2016. "Double jeopardy?: Caste, affirmative action, and stigma," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-71, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Diane Coffey & Ashwini Deshpande & Jeffrey Hammer & Dean Spears, 2019. "Local Social Inequality, Economic Inequality, and Disparities in Child Height in India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(4), pages 1427-1452, August.
    7. Subedi, Mukti Nath & Rafiq, Shuddhasattwa & Ulker, Aydogan, 2022. "Effects of Affirmative Action on Educational and Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from Nepal's Reservation Policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 443-463.
    8. Islam, Asad & Pakrashi, Debayan & Sahoo, Soubhagya & Wang, Liang Choon & Zenou, Yves, 2021. "Gender inequality and caste: Field experimental evidence from India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 111-124.
    9. Vieira, Renato Schwambach & Arends-Kuenning, Mary, 2019. "Affirmative action in Brazilian universities: Effects on the enrollment of targeted groups," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    10. Francis-Tan, Andrew & Tannuri-Pianto, Maria, 2018. "Black Movement: Using discontinuities in admissions to study the effects of college quality and affirmative action," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 97-116.
    11. Basant, Rakesh & Sen, Gitanjali, 2016. "Impact of Affirmative Action in Higher Education for the Other Backward Classes in India," IIMA Working Papers WP2016-07-01, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    12. Rikhil R. Bhavnani & Alexander Lee, 2021. "Does Affirmative Action Worsen Bureaucratic Performance? Evidence from the Indian Administrative Service," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 5-20, January.
    13. Priscila S. dos Santos & Kalinca L. Becker & Sibele V. de Oliveira, 2023. "Race‐based affirmative action for higher education in Brazil: Impact assessment on performance, time, and delay in completion," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 247-267, February.
    14. Girard, Victoire, 2018. "Don’t Touch My Road. Evidence from India on Affirmative Action And Everyday Discrimination," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 1-13.
    15. Cecilia Machado & Germ'an Reyes & Evan Riehl, 2023. "The Direct and Spillover Effects of Large-scale Affirmative Action at an Elite Brazilian University," Papers 2305.02513, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2023.
    16. Gaurav Khanna, 2020. "Does Affirmative Action Incentivize Schooling? Evidence from India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(2), pages 219-233, May.
    17. Rodrigo Oliveira & Alei Santos & Edson Severnini, 2022. "Affirmative action with no major switching: Evidence from a top university in Brazil," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-31, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    18. Stephan Klasen & Anna Minasyan, 2021. "Affirmative Action and Intersectionality at the Top: Evidence from South Africa," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 3-35, January.
    19. Zenou, Yves & Islam, Asad & Pakrashi, Debayan & Wang, Liang Choon, 2018. "Determining the Extent of Statistical Discrimination: Evidence from a field experiment in India," CEPR Discussion Papers 12955, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Pushkar Maitra & Ananta Neelim, 2024. "Discrimination in Developing Countries," Monash Economics Working Papers 2024-03, Monash University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Affirmative Action; Caste; India; Stigma; Discrimination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • J78 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Public Policy (including comparable worth)
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cde:cdewps:280. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sanjeev Sharma (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdudein.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.