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This study is an attempt to identify the origin of disparity in educational participation and educational achievement among various socio-religious groups in India. To accomplish this objective, we run the logistic model of regression to estimate the differential influences of the monetary returns to education and some personal, household and community-related factors affecting educational decisions of the school-age children across the groups. Then we use the method of inequality decomposition applicable for logit/probit model and decompose the existing inequality in the proportion of educational participation between some pairs of the socio-religious groups into ‘response effect’ and ‘attribute effect’. It is observed that there exists sharp disparity in educational participation among the various groups. A rise in estimated returns enhances the educational decisions of the members of the disadvantaged groups irrespective of their age and levels of education, but it can enhance the educational decisions of the members of the advantaged groups only at the upper end of their school-age. The percentage contribution of the ‘response effect’ of disparity in the rate of educational participation between Hindu-others and Muslims is greater compared to that of the ‘attribute effect’, but the former declines with the rise in the level of education. However, a significant proportion of the disparities in the educational participation between Hindu-others and Hindu-SC, and Hindu-others and Hindu-ST, is attributed to the characteristic differences at all levels of education except the middle.

This study examines the existence and persistence of gender disparity in education in rural and urban India. We use the sequential logit model of regression on data sets provided by three rounds of quinquennial employment and unemployment surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). The findings of the study reveal that in both rural and urban sectors of India there is gender group disparity, and this disparity is greater in the rural sector than in the urban areas. Furthermore, it is also found that the gender groups’ disparity in education in India has substantially changed during the last two decades across both sectors.

According to the neoclassical economists, discrimination exists in the labour market if employers treat two equally qualified and skilled persons differently based on gender, race, age, disability, religion, caste, etc. In this article, we attempt to look at discrimination in the Indian labour market by applying the multinomial probit model of regression to the National Sample Survey Office data set. By taking years of schooling (as an indicator of skill and ability) as an independent variable in the model, we find that identically educated persons from different caste and gender groups are not equally likely to achieve similar occupational status, indicating the existence of discrimination in the Indian labour market. JEL Classifications: I31, C31

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