Abstract
Nearly seventy years after India adopted one of the most progressive constitutions in the world ensuring equality for all its citizens irrespective of caste, class, race, and gender, the mind-set of its vast majority Indian remains steeped in gender and caste bias. Results from a new telephonic survey confirm persistence of conservative gender and caste attitudes in Indian society. High proportions of men and women across all social groups disapprove of women working outside their homes, consider it 'acceptable for husbands to beat their wives', and would object to relatives marrying a Dalit person. Analyzing data from the National Family Health Survey and the India Human Development Survey, it has been found that outcomes associated with these attitudes are even more conservative: a smaller fraction of women work than those who feel it is okay to step out of the house for work; a larger fraction of women experience violence in marriage than men who consider marital violence acceptable, and an even smaller fraction of people have inter-caste marriages than people who say they would not oppose such an alliance. An overwhelming majority is opposed to an inter-caste marriage with a Dalit in the family. With a few exceptions, the attitudes and outcomes we studied vary, surprisingly, little by respondent gender, caste, and religion. Dr.Ambedkar's legacy is indeed unfinished-people from all backgrounds must continue to work for the equality and dignity of women and Dalits.
Highlights
In his 1951 resignation speech, Dr B.R
We present novel results from a social attitudes phone survey and analyze whether attitudes about women and Dalits differ by gender, caste, and religion
This paper focuses on three attitude-outcome pairs of indicators: 1. What proportion of women work for pay and whether people think women should work for pay; 2
Summary
In his 1951 resignation speech, Dr B.R. Ambedkar explains that he was leaving the Cabinet because neither the Constituent Assembly nor the Prime Minister would support his draft of the Hindu Code Bill. We present novel results from a social attitudes phone survey and analyze whether attitudes about women and Dalits differ by gender, caste, and religion This way of measuring discrimination is less common, but makes valuable contributions to our understanding of the discriminatory processes. What proportion of people have inter-caste marriages and whether people say they would object if their relative were to marry someone from a Dalit caste For each of these pairs, responses to the attitude question cannot be seen as a direct comment on the outcomes that we study. If a close relative or someone in your family married someone from a Dalit caste would you oppose it or not?
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