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131. The Quad's Next Chapter

Author:
Karl Friedhoff
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Abstract:
Advancing the group's pillars of prosperity and development will be at the very heart of competition with China in the coming decade. The Quad—the country grouping including the United States, Japan, Australia, and India—now stands at a crossroads as it enters its third phase. The Quad 3.0 comes as the grouping has established the dialogue as a meeting place for leaders of the four countries but must now decide what shape competition with China will take and how to best address that competition. Thus far the Quad has struggled to find function for its form. Statements issued by Quad leaders stress the importance of “development, stability, and prosperity” in an effort to roll back China’s influence across the Indo-Pacific. However, its most high-profile activities focus on stability via high-profile military exercises. Closer internal coordination along the security axis serves to highlight the lack of visible progress on the external delivery of development and prosperity to countries outside the Quad. Efforts to deliver development and prosperity are hemmed in by the Quad itself. Neither the United States or India are party to either of the major regional trade agreements—the CPTPP and RCEP. The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), held up by the Biden administration as America’s economic engagement with Asia, remains a mirage. Meanwhile, as the United States de-risks its economic relationship with China, it is effectively warning that doing business with Beijing may come at a cost to relations with Washington—an unpopular message across much of the Indo-Pacific. Additionally, any hint of security cooperation with China by smaller countries in the region creates a flurry of diplomatic reaction from the United States. To move forward, the Quad needs to better balance its portfolio and how it messages that portfolio. The overt promotion of the security agenda is actively undermining perceptions of the Quad’s ability to engage on development and prosperity. A first corrective step is to balance the group’s internal goal of improved security coordination and cohesion with the Quad’s external goal of delivering development and prosperity to countries in the region. Committing to an agenda that brings the people of the region, not its seas, to the fore of the Quad mission should be a top priority. This means rejecting the dogma that every China initiative in the region needs a Quad alternative. Instead, advancing Quad goals requires identifying China’s activities that can be co-opted for Quad purposes. This will mean working around, and sometimes with, China’s initiatives to better serve not only the Quad’s goals in prosperity and development but also the people of the region.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Geopolitics, Trade, Strategic Competition, and Quad Alliance
Political Geography:
Japan, China, South Asia, India, East Asia, Australia, North America, United States of America, and Oceania

132. Tracking workers across generations – a cohort-based analysis

Author:
Rosa Abraham
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Alongside rapid economic growth, India also saw steady de-agrarianisation of its economy in terms of contribution to GDP. In terms of employment, however, the movement out of agriculture was slower, and when they did exit, it was often a withdrawal from the workforce entirely. In general, more of the workforce are in salaried employment, however, these have filtered differently by gender, caste and religion. While cross-sectional data gives us a sense of how these structural changes affect workers at any given point in time, it cannot tell us how these play out for workers over their lifetime as well as how different generations or cohorts of workers have been affected. Here, we use seven rounds of nationally representative official data to construct cohorts who are tracked over these periods to observe employment participation and the patterns over time. We find that younger generations of women systematically less likely to be in paid employment whereas for men, after a certain age, generations look similar in terms of employment rate. Similarly, when examined from the perspective of cohorts, we find that access to salaried employment has changed by gender and caste, and increase in earnings over time over their lifecycle has slowed for certain groups.
Topic:
Women, Employment, Economic Growth, and Economic Mobility
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

133. Association between Caste and Class in India: Evolution of Caste-Class Dynamics during Economic Growth

Author:
Vaishali Kohli
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Caste and class are two major markers of social and economic stratification in India. They play a crucial role in sustaining and strengthening the process of social exclusion. It has been often expected that the process of economic growth and modernization may weaken the congruence between caste and class structures and induce social and economic mobility, thereby bringing about a change in the socio-economic environment. In this paper, we focus on the celebrated period of high economic growth in India during the previous decade to study the evolution of caste-class dynamics, to analyze the pattern of association between caste and class positions, and to examine whether this association/congruence has weakened during this period. The analysis is based on four rounds of employment-unemployment surveys of the National Sample Survey Organization covering the period 1999-2012. We construct a matrix of caste and class positions of repeated cross-sections of individuals that shows whether different caste groups are over- or under-represented in different class positions and how these representations have changed over time. We then use a multinomial logistic regression framework to capture the role of caste in explaining the conditional probability of an individual to belong to a particular class position, after controlling for other critical explanatory variables. We further examine how the explanatory role of caste has changed over time. Additionally, we explore the role of education, a crucial channel for socioeconomic mobility, in explaining the class positions of individuals belonging to different caste groups over time. Finally, we examine the impact of high economic growth in determining the class position of an individual in general, as well as for different caste groups over time. The analysis shows that caste has continued to remain an important factor in explaining class locations of individuals during the period of high economic growth. Further, the caste-class associations have continued to persist across different categories of education over time. While there has been a partial weakening of certain associations during the period, particularly for the Other Backward Castes and in some parts of the rural sector, the overall picture is more of continuity than change, with further strengthening and reinforcement of caste-class congruence along several axes. This calls into question the 2 expectations about social mobility with economic growth as well as the nature of economic growth in India.
Topic:
Development, Economic Growth, Class, Caste, Social Exclusion, and Social Mobility
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

134. What did they say? Respondent identity, question framing and the measurement of employment

Author:
Rosa Abraham, Nishat Anjum, Rahul Lahoti, and Hema Swaminathan
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
In developing countries, a precise approach to measuring women’s employment remains elusive. Emerging evidence underscores the pivotal role of survey methodology, encompassing respondent selection and question framing, in shaping the assessment of women’s employment. Drawing from two labor market experiments in rural India, this study offers insights on the influence of survey design on the measurement of women’s employment. The first experiment contrasts self-reported women’s and men’s employment figures with proxy-reported data from spouses. Women’s self-reported workforce participation surpasses proxy-reported estimates by six percentage points, while men’s estimates exhibit negligible differences. There are significant differences in the type of employment activities reported by self and proxy for both women and men. These divergences emanate from asymmetric measurement errors, stemming from gender-based norm disparities between spouses, and divergent interpretations of employment. Additionally, information asymmetry between spouses concerning women’s marginal activities and disparities in spousal characteristics contribute to these self-proxy differences. The second experiment investigates if framing of questions and recall period has an impact on reporting of labor market outcomes. We find that employing multiple questions to capture weekly employment status yields a 10-percentage-point increase in reported women’s workforce participation, but men’s participation rate decreases by six percentage points. Furthermore, when a distinct employment query is directed at each day of the preceding week as opposed to a single query for the entire week, reported women’s workforce participation increases by seven percentage points, and men’s by four percentage points.
Topic:
Development, Employment, Survey, Methods, and Gender
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

135. Jobless growth and structural transformation: Some theoretical considerations and empirical evidence from India

Author:
Zico Dasgupta and Amit Basole
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
The decoupling of output growth and employment growth, known popularly as “jobless growth” has been a problem plaguing many countries. Using cross-country data, we show that India has underperformed significantly on job creation compared to the average developing country with lower than average employment elasticities at both the aggregate level and for the non-agricultural sector. Strikingly, we find a one-for-one relationship between output growth and productivity growth in India’s non-agricultural sector, i.e. a Kaldor-Verdoorn coefficient of one. Despite this joblessness of growth, the Indian economy has experienced some structural transformation with the share of the non-agricultural sector and the share of regular wage employment rising at the expense of agriculture and self-employment. We develop a theoretical model which clarifies the relative roles of labour demand and labour supply in determining the output-employment relationship. In this model, the Indian case of some structural transformation even with jobless growth emerges as one case among four possible cases (growth with or without jobs / structural change or no structural change). We conclude with some policy implications.
Topic:
Employment, Economic Growth, Gender, Structural Transformation, and Jobless Growth
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

136. Telephone surveys for data collection – some reflections

Author:
Rosa Abraham and Mridhula Mohan
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Phone-based surveys have emerged as important survey tool with their use increasing particularly during the pandemic-induced lockdowns. However, the use of phone-based surveys comes with concerns around sampling and reporting – the former refers to issues in terms of reaching the intended respondents and adequate representation of different groups while the latter relates to the quality of data collected. Based on a phone-survey of a pre-existing cross-section of households in Karnataka and Rajasthan conducted during the lockdowns of 2020, this paper looks at how sampling and reporting issues play out especially with regard to speaking to women. Access to women, via phone surveys, is limited since most women do not have their own phone, and even if they are reached, they may not have the freedom to respond to all questions asked. We recommend a detailed protocol with multiple callbacks and rescheduling of calls that reduce sampling errors and allow for greater reach of women respondents and minimise discretionary decisions from the enumerators . We also recommend a set of questions to enumerators to help reflect on the quality of data collected. While phone surveys cannot replace in-person surveys, in the event they are used, a well designed protocol along with the use of meta and para data can go a long way in enhancing the quality and reliabilty of the data.
Topic:
Women, Employment, Survey, Methods, and Data Collection
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

137. The Unhappy Marriage of Women’s Work and Spousal Violence in India

Author:
Vijayshree Jayaraman
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Gender-based violence against women is a public health crisis that highlights the persistent gender inequalities present in our society. Informed by theories in several disciplines, spousal violence can be modelled as a multi-faceted phenomenon arising from the intersection of many factors, that may either be a risk or buffer factors. This papers tries to understand if a women’s employment is a risk or buffer factor for spousal violence. We use the NFHS 4 data-set and develop linear probability models to understand the different channels through which employment may change the likelihood of violence. We find that, being employed makes a woman more vulnerable to spousal violence, particularly if the woman earns more than the husband. Adding to that, we find evidence suggesting ‘female guilt’ present in working wives, where they justify spousal violence especially if ‘the wife is unfaithful’. We argue the need to account for different form of violence while studying spousal violence, which has not been studied previously in the literature and present results for the same.
Topic:
Women, Employment, Gender Based Violence, Domestic Violence, and Bargaining
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

138. Estimating the productivity gap between organised and unorganised small-scale units in India’s manufacturing sector

Author:
Amit Basole, Dimple Chopde, and Paaritosh Nath
Publication Date:
06-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Small manufacturing firms are considered to be engines of growth and job creation. While most research on small firms focuses on formal sector units, in India informal sector units far outnumber the formal. This is true even for manufacturing units employing 5 to 49 workers, which constitute only 5% of all unorganised units, but in absolute numbers are nine times more numerous than organised units in the same size class. Such firms have the potential to contribute to structural transformation but their capacities vis-a-vis formal firms are not well understood. To address this, we create a unit-level dataset combining Annual Survey of Industries data for organised (formal) units with the National Sample Survey data on unorganised (informal) units. We also discuss problems involved in this exercise and some ways to deal with them. We find that matching organised and unorganised units on observable characteristics reduces the labour productivity differences between them to around 25 percent. We discuss some policy implications of our results.
Topic:
Employment, Manufacturing, Productivity, and Informal Economy
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

139. Labour Market Flows and Gender Differentials in Urban Unemployment Over the Pandemic

Author:
Paaritosh Nath
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Utilising data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey, we estimate quarterly changes in urban labour market flows over the period 2018 to 2022 and the impact on unemployment rates for men and women. Our analysis provides non-intuitive explanations for established findings as well as pointing out important questions for further study. Both men and women’s unemployment rates have reduced in 2022 compared to 2018, showing rapid reductions following the high levels reached during the lockdown. Women’s unemployment rates have consistently been higher than men throughout this period. The gap between men and women’s unemployment rates reduced during the lockdown, but have shown signs of increasing since 2021, even as unemployment rates have fallen. For women, flows from the labour force to non-participation play a larger role in explaining changes in unemployment rates as compared to men. Flows from the labour force to non-participation, however, have reduced since the pandemic, providing an explanation as to why labour force participation rates have increased, namely, women staying for longer in the labour force rather than more women entering it. Despite rising labour force participation rates, the gender gap in unemployment rates have risen, in contrast to developed economies.
Topic:
Urban, Unemployment, COVID-19, Labor Market, and Gender
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Global Focus

140. INDIA@75: ASSESSING INDIA’S USE OF SOFT POWER AS A FOREIGN POLICY INSTRUMENT

Author:
Mohammad Reyaz
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Liberty and International Affairs
Institution:
Institute for Research and European Studies (IRES)
Abstract:
The term soft power has become a catch-all-phrase for public and cultural diplomacy since Joseph Nye introduced it in 1990. India has had several historical and cultural advantages regarding its influence in foreign countries. While India and Indians enjoyed goodwill in most countries, the sudden interests in India among the policymakers, businesses, and politicians were mainly after the 1992 economic liberalization that had opened the Indian markets to foreign investments. Besides the nation-branding exercises globally, New Delhi employed soft power instruments in countries it deemed to have more significant interests, from traditional allies like Bhutan and Afghanistan to the countries in the West in the last three decades. Nevertheless, how successful has India been in exploiting its cultural linkages and using its soft power in its branding? This question becomes pertinent as, in recent years, India has often received negative press coverage in international media, and on several freedom/democratic indices, its rankings have gone down. As India celebrates 75 years of independence as Azadi ka Mahotsav (a grand celebration of independence), this paper assesses the scope of its soft power as a foreign policy instrument, points out its shortcomings, and recommends the possibilities.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Soft Power, Cultural Diplomacy, Public Diplomacy, and Bollywood
Political Geography:
South Asia and India