Has Social Sector Development Catalysed the Inclusiveness of India’s Economic Growth?

Abstract

The study attempts to examine the impact of social sector development on inclusive growth in India. Ever since Independence, India’s encounter with gnawing poverty and stark deprivation, particularly of the weaker and the marginalised sections of society, cajoled India’s planners to moot the development policies with the sole objective of exacerbating growth with equity. That is why since the beginning of the planning era, the stress had been laid on strengthening and expanding the social sectors with the premise that it would boost the inclusive growth agenda, manifesting in equal access to employment and economic opportunities; equal participation in decision-making and reduction in poverty and inequality. In conformity with the objective of our study, we intend to gauge the effect and contribution of different components of social sector development in India, on inclusiveness of growth using time series data for the period of 1985–1986 to 2015–2016. It was found that the expenditure related to ‘social security and welfare’ contributes significantly towards inclusive growth in India while the expenditure incurred on ‘welfare of marginalised class’ and ‘rural development’ exudes negative association with inclusiveness of growth.