Persistence of intergroup occupational disparity in India

Abstract

AbstractThe traditional summary measures of intergenerational mobility are symmetric, since these measures don't distinguish the directions of mobility, that is, upward and downward mobility in the respective dimension. In this study, we define two group‐specific summary measures of the relative strength of upward/downward occupational mobility, and apply these summary measures to examine the persistence of occupational disparity across Indian social groups. Major findings of this study reveal that there has been an increase in occupational mobility from the oldest to the youngest cohort across the samples of all social groups, but in this context there is an intergroup disparity. More specifically, this increase in mobility is greater for Other Backward Castes, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes when compared to the Higher Castes. However, by taking into account the direction of newly developed group‐specific summary measures, this study reveals that occupational disparity across Indian social groups has increased overtime.