Breaking the Caste Barrier: Intergenerational Mobility in India

We contrast the intergenerational mobility rates of the historically disadvantaged scheduled castes and tribes (SC/ST) in India with the rest of the workforce in terms of their education attainment, occupation choices and wages. Using survey data from successive rounds of the National Sample Survey between 1983 and 2005, we find that intergenerational education and income mobility rates of SC/STs have converged to non-SC/ST levels during this period. Moreover, SC/STs have matched non-SC/STs in occupation mobility rates. We conclude that the last 20 years of structural changes in India have coincided with a breaking down of caste-based barriers to socioeconomic mobility.