Over the years, prisons across the world have evolved from being sites of punitive confinement for individuals participating in activities considered unlawful in a specific sociopolitical context to correctional facilities offering opportunities for redemption and eventual reintegration. In India, successive prison reforms have advocated for the humanitarian treatment of incarcerated individuals. The present study, based on an evaluative study of prison reforms in Telangana, critically examines the ways the reform is conceptualised and operationalised through an intertwined relationship between discipline and welfare. Focusing on the strict control over time, this article explores how this both constrains and enables the restoration of personhood. Drawing on in-depth interviews and field observations across multiple prisons, the study finds that although reforms have improved living conditions and services, welfare is often framed as a reward for conformity, which can erode personhood. The article argues that for prison reforms to be truly transformative, there is a need for reimagination that goes beyond the conventional carceral framework and engages more meaningfully with the diverse lived experiences and aspirations of incarcerated individuals.
While alcohol consumption in tribal communities is integral to their cultural, religious and social life, it is also a source of financial stress and family disruption, often linked to domestic violence. Alcohol-induced intimate partner violence remains severe and often hidden, with many cases unreported due to the stigma, shame and fear experienced by women. Drawing on primary data collected from 150 tribal women, this article aims to understand their experience with domestic violence as a result of alcohol consumption within their families. Kernel density estimation (KDE) was used to analyse the age distribution of women experiencing domestic violence, and a χ 2 test was employed to investigate relationships between these factors. The findings highlight the critical need for targeted interventions to address the interconnected factors contributing to domestic violence. The study also emphasises the need to strengthen support systems, educational opportunities, awareness, legal counselling, skill development and income-generating activities to reduce domestic violence and improve the well-being of tribal women.
The development of any nation crucially depends on the efficient utilisation of its human resources. Despite enjoying a favourable demographic dividend, the Indian labour market suffers from the underutilisation of its female workforce, who mostly remain confined to agriculture, whereas the more remunerative non-farm sector is dominated by men. Assam, one of the states of north-east India, has the lowest share of female employment, but also witnessed the highest share of non-farm employment in recent times. Despite the growing importance of the rural non-farm sector in providing remunerative jobs and a stable source of livelihood, the participation of females remains limited compared to that of males. Therefore, it is pertinent to understand the reasons behind the limited participation of females in the non-farm sector in rural Assam. With the use of a multinomial logistic regression model, our findings reveal that although status maintenance is prevalent in rural Assam, it is largely confined to married women. Education plays a transformative role by enabling women to participate in non-farm activities rather than maintaining household status. It further facilitates women from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe households to participate in self-employed and regular non-farm activities. The findings highlight the need for investment in education and skill development programmes to strengthen female participation in the non-farm economy of rural Assam.
This article undertakes a rigorous reassessment of the framework governing resource transfers from the union to subnational governments in India, interrogating its constitutional foundations, distributional adequacy and implications for development finance, with specific reference to the recommendations of the Sixteenth Finance Commission. The central contention is that the progressive hollowing out of the divisible pool, driven primarily by the union’s persistent recourse to non-shareable cesses and surcharges, has eroded the revenue entitlements of state governments that are constitutionally guaranteed. A methodological argument is advanced that prevailing assessments of transfer size, which normalise total transfers relative to gross tax revenue (GTR), systematically misrepresent the union’s actual resource availability; since FC grants as well as non-FC grants alike draw upon the Consolidated Fund of India, they are more appropriately measured as shares of gross revenue receipts. The empirical analysis reveals that the systematic drift of transfer composition towards conditionality-laden non-FC flows has progressively curtailed subnational budgetary discretion. This article further shows that the existing vertical devolution architecture is structurally inadequate for bridging the fiscal gap between the union and states and argues that the FC-16’s institutional modifications, including a conditional bargain on cesses and the termination of revenue-deficit grants, do not resolve the underlying structural deficit. These findings raise substantive questions about whether cooperative federalism can be sustained under the prevailing transfer architecture.
Care needs of a large proportion of Indian households are managed primarily through women’s unpaid labour, which restricts their labour market participation. During 2023–2024, the majority of Indian women missing from the labour force cited child care responsibilities and homemaking commitments as key reasons for this situation. Limited participation of government and private sectors in care provisioning and social reproduction of workers has led to inadequate access to paid care services, creating further challenges. Applying a framework developed by the International Labour Organization (ILO) to define care services as an economic sector, this article finds that India’s care sector is at a nascent stage of development, with the care workforce comprising 5.9% of total employment in 2023–2024. Excluding education and health sectors that account for a significant proportion of the care workforce, personal care services for children, the elderly, disabled and specially abled people employ a much smaller proportion of the care workforce. With increasing economic participation of women, expanding the provisioning of personal care services and ensuring affordability becomes crucial to avoid a care crisis in households. Policy interventions for care sector development through government and private sector investment need to focus on ensuring decent work conditions and social protection for care workers. Considering the higher concentration of women in the care sector, it is crucial for such interventions to be gender-sensitive.
This study aimed to identify the factors that determine the remittance behaviour of rural migrants and their impact on household welfare. The study was conducted in selected villages of rural West Bengal. The logistic regression, coupled with ordinary least squares techniques, was used to identify the factors that ascertain the flow and size of remittances of migrant labourers. Moreover, different cross-tabulations were used to identify the impact of remittances on household welfare. The econometric analyses suggest that the gender, age of the migrants, the gender and education level of the household head, per capita monthly consumption expenditure and proportion of members migrated from the household, coupled with the number of dependents in the household, are significant determining factors in the decision of sending remittances. In contrast, the income of the migrant, non-farm employment and short-term duration, along with economic aspects of international destinations, help the migrants to send a decent size of remittances to their households at regular intervals. In addition, the variations in the socio-economic characteristics of the households have been found to be responsible for less use of remittances in improving household welfare.
A woman’s life undergoes several physiological changes during pregnancy, which have an impact on their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Therefore, evaluating QoL during pregnancy could support the implementation of innovative practices for improving outcomes. The main objective of this study is to evaluate and identify the predictors associated with HRQoL during the trimesters of pregnancy. A cross-sectional study was carried out across slum areas of Hyderabad City on a sample of 267 lactating mothers having less than 6-month-old infants during August to October 2022. HRQoL was measured through the World Health Organization Quality of Life–Brief Version (WHOQOL-BREF) instrument, and questionnaires on maternal and socio-demographic variables were included. The analysis was performed using SPSS version 21. Descriptive statistics, probability and χ 2 analysis were used to identify associated factors and Cronbach’s α was used to assess the reliability of questionnaires. This study reveals that socio-economic predictors associated with QoL were community, source of water, type of house, debt and foods taken. Age at marriage, having diabetes or blood pressure, economic status, education, multiparous and doing exercise were associated with HRQoL during pregnancy. This study underscores that modifiable factors would improve QoL, whereas mean values of all domains of HRQoL are lowest during the third trimester, suggesting more policies and implementation of actions for better outcomes.
This study investigates how Punjab’s organised manufacturing sector has evolved across different technology-intensive industrial categories and examines whether these structural changes have influenced labour productivity (LP) growth. Using shift–share decomposition analysis, the study observes a gradual movement from traditional low-technology (LT) industries towards more advanced technology-intensive sectors. The present analysis, using the Theil index, confirms that this transformation follows a rational pattern. However, findings reveal that these structural shifts contribute minimally to overall LP improvements. Instead, productivity gains primarily stem from advancements within existing industries through technical progress, skill developments and learning-by-doing processes. This study makes a distinctive contribution by examining structural change through three complementary perspectives: shifts in industry composition, rationalisation of manufacturing structure and advancement towards higher-technology production.
Vocational education is considered an effective policy tool in reshaping the socio-economic outcomes of a nation. The Indian government has undertaken several initiatives to promote skill-based technical education in the country, though the macroeconomic impact of vocational education programmes on redressing development outcomes, particularly poverty reduction, requires a broader evaluation. Studies are extremely limited that have examined the role of vocational education at the national level in any human capital models, specifically for the Indian economy. Therefore, this study investigates how vocational education has affected poverty in India over the last three decades using annual data from 1990–1991 to 2019–2020. Following a traditional human capital framework, the long-run and short-run relationships between vocational education and poverty have been examined based on the usual autoregressive distributed lag model. The findings confirm the potential of vocational education in reducing poverty in both the short- and long-run periods for the Indian economy. The study also conducted diagnostic tests, ensuring robustness and stability of the estimated model. Based on the major findings, we highlight the importance of vocational education as a major education and labour market policy tool in terms of ensuring more inclusiveness for people below the poverty line.
Using data from a fieldwork conducted during 2021–2022 among Amazon and Zomato delivery partners and Uber drivers in Ahmedabad City, this article discusses the changing labour process in the gig/platform workspace in terms of employment status, working conditions, education and skill amidst the health and economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It also addresses how gig workers are inadequately included in labour jurisprudence. The findings of this study indicate that after the pandemic, precarity in the gig workspace has been intensified and vulnerability among workers reinforced. In addition, it is argued that informal collectives regarding gig workspace have been recognised by legal jurisprudence.
Ranging over decades and across many cities in India, several World Bank (WB)–funded projects have aimed to transform India’s intermittent water supply (IWS) to a 24 × 7 model, involving local governments and parastatal bodies. Faced with extreme water scarcity, with supply as infrequent as once in every 15 days in some areas, Karnataka partnered with the WB to launch the Karnataka Urban Water Sector Improvement Project (KUWASIP) in 2004. This analysis is based on a comprehensive primary survey of households evaluating the transition from intermittent to continuous water supply (CWS) in Hubballi–Dharwad, Belagavi and Kalaburagi cities. The survey reveals a strong preference for CWS among households across these cities, with many willing to pay higher tariffs for reliable water access. Despite this positive reception, the transition to 24 × 7 supply in areas other than the demo zone has been slow. Since its implementation in 2008, only 10% of households in each of the selected cities (demo zone) have achieved full 24 × 7 coverage. The efforts by municipal bodies of three selected cities continue, aiming to extend this service to all the households in the respective cities through private operators.
This study examines the structural and sociocultural barriers that limit Yemeni women’s access to formal banking, using Al-Kuraimi Islamic Microfinance Bank as a case study. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach, including a digital survey of 809 women across 14 governorates and in-depth interviews, this research highlights key obstacles to the financial inclusion of Yemeni women. Despite modest growth in female account ownership, 61% of the surveyed women remain unbanked, and many of them expressed disinterest in account ownership. Barriers to account ownership include lack of income, distrust of financial institutions, mobility constraints and documentation requirements, compounded by patriarchal norms such as male guardian consent. Islamic microfinance and mobile money services offer promise for expanding financial inclusion, particularly in conservative and rural areas. The findings of this study also explore how women use financial services for remittances, bill payments, online commerce and microenterprise development. The study underscores the importance of trust-building, gender-sensitive banking practices and simplified procedures. It argues that financial inclusion, when responsive to local realities, can enhance women’s economic agency, resilience and participation in peacebuilding.
Caste is often viewed as an ancient and traditional structure of hierarchy with its origin in the Hindu religious system, flourishing in the social ecology of the Indian village. Such framings of caste believed it would decline and disappear with India progressing on the path of development and modernisation. However, caste persists, often manifesting with much greater vigour, even in modern urban contexts. What could be the future course of caste? This article aims to examine the futures of caste, arguing for a revisiting of the mainstream framings of caste, both popular and academic, that remain ‘trapped’ in a moral language, while uncritically accepting the colonial and Orientalist imaginations that treat caste as an exceptional institution, unique to the Hindus of India. Proposing an alternative framework, the article argues for a deeper engagement with the obvious materiality of caste and its context-specific relational processes.
This study presents a comparative analysis of the nature of inclusiveness of economic growth of two of India’s fastest-growing states, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. Using the Household Consumer Expenditure Survey (HCES) unit-level data for the years 1993–1994, 2004–2005 and 2011–2012, collected by the National Sample Survey Organization, this study examines the inclusiveness by deploying a poverty decomposition technique, followed by spatial/sectoral and household type–based decomposition of inequality in both regions. We find that Tamil Nadu has outperformed Gujarat with respect to poverty reduction for the two periods of analysis—1993–1994 to 2004–2005 and 2004–2005 to 2011–2012—in both urban and rural sectors. The poverty decomposition exercise demonstrates that although economic growth contributed significantly to reducing the level of poverty, the magnitude of poverty decline has been slowed down due to accelerating inequality. The growing divergence among households of various types has been significant in explaining rising inequality. Hence, poverty-alleviating policies should consider the distributional dynamics and should be more holistic in nature.
Pineapple cultivation has vital economic importance for farming households in the Lakhipur subdivision of Cachar district of Assam, situated in the southern part of North-East India. It contributes to the livelihoods of a substantial portion of the native tribal population of the region. Little is known, however, about the economic status of the pineapple-growing families of the Lakhipur subdivision. Therefore, this study aims to shed light on the extent of poverty among the pineapple-growing households of the Lakhipur subdivision, emphasising the role of fruit cultivation in mitigating rural poverty. The study is based on primary data collected from a sample of 335 pineapple-growing households through a multistage mixed sampling technique. The results of the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) have shown that a notable proportion of pineapple-growing households in the region are affected by multidimensional poverty. According to the MPI analysis, nearly 45% of pineapple-growing households are non-poor. However, more than 55% of households are either vulnerable to multidimensional poverty or multidimensionally poor. These findings underscore the multifaceted nature of poverty, extending beyond income and consumption expenditure to encompass various dimensions such as health, education and living standards. The implications of this research are far-reaching, as it not only identifies the pineapple growers who are most vulnerable but also provides crucial insights for policymaking. It is recommended that, to improve the living standards and economic well-being of pineapple growers, targeted interventions that address both income–consumption-related and multidimensional poverty factors are essential.
The economists’ interest in the concept of structural change itself dates back to the tradition of classical political economy. Ideas related to structural change in the face of agrarian transitions can be found in classical economists as early as Quesnay and the Physiocrats. The analysis of the agrarian transition to capitalism (and socialism) as part of the overall structural change in the economic system has been a matter of interest for Marx and the Marxists. The Marxian agrarian question discourses, including Marx’s study of primitive accumulation, Engels’s peasant question, Lenin’s and Kautsky’s work on the development of capitalism in manufacturing and industry, and the post-Soviet debates on the transition to socialism, have the mechanics of structural change at their centre. This study reconstructs the ideas on structural change in the canonical texts of the agrarian question discourse in a thematic manner and constructs an analytical framework of structural change and agrarian transition in the Marxian tradition. This study is an attempt to survey and rearticulate the Marxian agrarian question from a history of economic thought standpoint, focusing on the mechanics of structural change.
