Abstract
Becker's theory of taste-based discrimination predicts that relative employment of the discriminated social group will improve if there is a decrease in the level of prejudice for the marginally discriminating employer. In this paper we experimentally test this prediction offered by Becker (1971) in the context of caste in India, with management students (potential employers in the near future) as subjects. First, we measure caste prejudice and show that awareness through a TV social program reduces implicit prejudice against the lower caste and the reduction is sustained over time. Second, we find that the treatment reduces the prejudice levels of those in the left tail of the prejudice distribution - the group which can potentially affect real outcomes as predicted by the theory. And finally, a larger share of the treatment group subjects exhibit favorable opinion about reservation in jobs for the lower caste.
Highlights
Caste is an age-old system of rigid social and ritual stratification of Indian society, implying the total exclusion of certain groups from the rights and opportunities for advancement
The dependent variable is the Implicit Attitude Test (IAT) Level which ranges from -3 to 3
We estimate a quantile regression of the treatment effect on the prejudice level to check whether the treatment effect we find arising in the experiment originates in the lower tail of the prejudice distribution
Summary
Caste is an age-old system of rigid social and ritual stratification of Indian society, implying the total exclusion of certain groups from the rights and opportunities for advancement. Discrimination based on caste continues to have very deep roots in India and presents a good setting for studying the origins of discrimination. Quota-based affirmative action policy has been adopted in a larger scale in India than elsewhere with reservation of public sector jobs, political seats and slots in higher educational institutions for the lowest-caste groups in society. Despite a social setting different from that in which racial prejudice against African Americans is observed, the issue of caste-based discrimination can be studied under the framework of the Beckerian theory [1] of taste biases. Few studies are able to exogenously manipulate the prevalent prejudice levels and thereby cleanly identify effect of prejudice on PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0118546 April 22, 2015
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