Proximate, Isolate, and Raw Illiteracy Some Issues in Method and Measurement with Application to a State-Level Study from India

Abstract

Literacy is an important concept in the development discourse. Unfortunately, this concept is still surrounded with mazes of ambiguity. For example, in addition to determining the number of adult literates, it may also be necessary to determine their influence on their families (Basu & Foster, 1998). Living in close proximity to literate persons will undoubtedly benefit an illiterate person. Most studies want to extend the simple literacy rate to include these externalities (Basu & Foster, 1998; Basu & Lee, 2008; Kell, 2008; Maddox, 2007; Mukherjee & Gupta, 2003; Subramanian, 2004, among others). The standard problem in these approaches is the specification of the externality parameters. Depending upon on the specified values, the resulting literacy indices vary considerably. In this paper, we have attempted to remove this drawback by introducing data-driven weights. Further, we consider some aspects of the dynamics of the literacy rate and its extended components. Our results depict some interesting dynamic features. Further, the data-driven weights bring less dramatic changes in the literacy rates.Ever since independence, Indian policy makers have emphasized the attainment of a decent standard of living, its prime component being literacy. However most of the available studies on India's achievement on this front are one-dimensional. In recent years some other parameters of educational attainment (such as years of schooling) have been used to supplement this uni-dimensional measure. This new approach to literacy brings new depth to the assessment of literacy itself. Literacy is not merely a matter of how many (or what proportion of) people are literate, but where they are. It makes a lot of difference if the literate persons are well distributed across the families, rather than being concentrated in a few pockets. A person in a family with no literates is an ”isolated literate,” while those in a family with some literates are ”proximate literates.”