Suchergebnisse

This study examines the access of students from diverse backgrounds to medical education in India. It shows how inequalities existing in society may entail significant social injustices with regard to access to a career in medicine. The study is based on data from secondary sources. The major part of the analysis is from the Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2019–20; All India Survey on Higher Education, 2019–20; and National Sample Survey data on Social Consumption, Education 2017–18. It is observed that the availability of health professionals is very low overall but it is even lower among underprivileged groups. There are indications of a better share of salaried health professionals among underprivileged caste/ethnic groups probably due to the presence of affirmative action but inequality prevails in self-employment and high quality occupations, thus reflecting the inequality prevalent in society. However, the pattern among Muslims is different from the caste/ethnic groups as the share of regular salaried workers is lower and self-employed is higher among Muslims. The study shows that access to medical courses is linked to family background depicted by caste/ethnicity and religious identities. The availability of medical education in general is very low. The situation is further aggravated for students from underprivileged backgrounds. The high cost of medical courses combined with the dominance of self-financed courses and private unaided institutions may make it inaccessible to students from weaker sections of society. In fact, the probability of attending a medical course is relatively lower for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SCs/STs) and Muslims than Hindu High Castes (HHCs). The low average expenditure of medical courses confirms the low quality of education accessed by the student from underprivileged backgrounds at every level. It is important to note that education of the head of the family emerges as the most important predictor for access to medicine education. Similarly low household size also improves the probability of attendance. It is thus important to improve the access to medical education through establishing new educational institutions with affordable costs. The challenge is to ensure equal access for students from underprivileged groups so that the existing inequality in the availability of health professionals may be addressed. For this, affirmative action for the students from poor families and first generation learners may be worthwhile to address the problem of inequality of access to medical education. Such policies would also improve the availability of health professionals from the underprivileged socio-religious background which in turn would play an instrumental role in ensuring better access to healthcare services for patients from underprivileged communities.

During the past two decades, access to school and higher education has increased significantly among every group. Since the commencement of the constitution, emphasis has been laid on the universalisation of elementary education. With the adoption of economic reforms, the role of private sector has significantly increased and resulted in reducing the State's commitment towards social sector under the pretext of fiscal discipline. The obvious repercussion of such a policy shift was increasing the role of private sector at the cost of government sector. Against this background of expansion along with privatisation, it would be worthwhile to analyse whether the expansion during the previous two decades has been inclusive or not. This article thus, seeks to analyse how the expansion in school and higher education has affected the access of marginalised groups such as Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs). Although the access at elementary level has reached universal level at elementary but the issue of retention is a major concern in this regard. The access at Secondary & Higher Secondary and Higher Education has increased among every social group and the growth rate is higher among SCs and STs, respectively than "Others' but this increase has not been sufficient to overcome the existing disparities. The issue is noteworthy due to increasing share of private unaided institutions, lack of financial support and hence lower share of SCs and STs in private unaided institutions. Thus, there is a need of emphasis on providing equal opportunity with the consideration of structural changes in higher education.

The women's sexual and reproductive healthcare sector, one of the largest employers delivering services globally, does not always commit to equality, diversity, and inclusion. There is objective, published evidence that not only care provision but also workforce treatment permits inequality and discrimination. The black and ethnic minority workforce in the women's health specialty, compared to their white counterparts, is often treated unfavorably in appointments, is less often afforded academic development opportunities, is, at many sites, subjected to disproportionately greater disciplinary penalties, tends not have representation in positions of authority, and undertakes training in what is often perceived as a climate of fear due to racism. This problem deserves immediate action by professional bodies. They have the responsibility to remove feelings of exclusion and lack of belonging to all staff, the negative impact on wellbeing caused by unnecessary stress, and concerns over career progression among minority ethnic healthcare workforce and other workers who report discrimination. This duty is part of the societal responsibility to ensure fairness and eradicate discrimination under the equality, diversity and inclusion agenda.

Using recent data for 2017/2018 the article provides empirical evidence on the persistence of the traditional inter-caste inequality in higher educational attainment—enrolment rate being much low for low castes than the high castes. The educational attainment of middle caste is lower than high castes but better than low caste untouchables, indicating a graded inequality in education attainment, unique feature of caste system. Between the income group the low income groups suffered the most from low education attainment than the high oncome groups. The inequalities in ownership of wealth and income and caste discrimination faced by low caste untouchables are the main reasons for low education attainment among the low caste and low income groups. The shift in the government policy towards privatisation of higher education also has taken the education beyond the reach of low income household. The caste discrimination result into high drop out among the scheduled castes. In the end based on the empirical results relevant (caste) group specific and income group specific policies are proposed to promote higher education among the low castes and low income groups. JEL Codes: 123, J24, D63, J71

This paper examines the trajectory of policy changes and increasing significance of the private sector with regard to higher education in India. The phenomenon of privatisation of higher education, its forms and patterns in India, is discussed in this paper. The concept of education privatisation, its pattern and trend are discussed using evidence from secondary data. It is argued that privatisation in the education sector differs from the concept of privatisation in general due to the fact that this process can take place without the transfer of ownership from the public to the private sector. The Indian version of education privatisation may be characterised as a by-product of response to the economic crisis that happened in the late eighties, which shifted the overall policy towards privatisation due to the adoption of neoliberal policies in the aftermath of the 1991 crisis. It has progressed gradually over the three decades post-1991 and consequently converging towards the international consensus. Notably, the shift towards privatisation is witnessed both in policymaking and by the judiciary, which further confirms that education privatisation in India cannot be classified as an abrupt move under the pressure of simply an economic crisis. The private sector has been dominant in stand-alone institutions and deemed universities in the initial phase. The increasing presence of the private sector in universities is the most recent phenomenon. However, government's commitment towards financing higher education is an instrumental factor in determining the size of the private sector. Thus, the prime reason behind privatisation is largely a policy choice, either proactive measures towards education privatisation or low priority given to the expansion of higher education in the government sector.

Equal and non-discriminatory access to housing is imperative to ensure right to housing for all. Inter-group inequality in access to housing continues to persist in both rural and urban areas in India. Housing is the highest household expenditure for a majority of households. Marginalised social groups experience discrimination in access to housing: both rental and owned. Despite having affordability, equal access to housing is denied for marginalised social groups. This article attempts to understand the inter-group inequality in access to housing based on NSSO 76th round, 2018. The article also measures the role of discrimination in denial of equal access to housing for marginalised social groups based on the decomposition analysis. The results of the article indicate that apart from income and other economic variables, discrimination based on social group identity determines the access to quality of housing. In comparison to dominant social groups, scheduled caste and religious minority households have lower access to good quality of housing despite similar incomes.

One of the major policy concerns in recent years has been decline in the number of women workers in the Indian labour market. The 'education' and 'income' effect hypotheses for such decline are generally advocated. Such analyses, however, are limited in their focus. This study attempts to fill up this gap by exclusively focusing on rural women. Using the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) data for the years 2004–2005 and 2011–2012 and Periodic Labour Force Survey data for the year 2017–2018, it observes a widespread decline in rural women's work participation rates (WPRs) across their different social groups, income strata and states in the country albeit at a significantly varying rate. While the major decline in women WPRs in the age-group, 15–24 years has been in favour of education, it has been largely in favour of 'domestic works' in the other age-groups. The major decline in women workforce is observed in case of those as not-literates, 'unpaid family labour' in agriculture and 'casual wage labour' both in farm and non-farm sectors. This is largely due to contraction in self-employment and casual wage works both in farm and non-farm sectors, more so during recent period. This study finds a positive impact of rising household income on women's WPRs. While education emerges as a significant predictor of women joining workforce, its iteration with their social groups shows differing impact of similar level of education on different caste groups. It offers inputs for policy measures to be aimed at providing decent livelihoods in rural areas in a big scale, with strong focus on reducing caste and gender disparities. JEL Codes: E24, J16, J21, J18