Job Reservation Policy in India: Do Ethnicity and Gender Confound Returns to Education?

Maitreyi B. Das, World Bank Group

The purpose of this study is to compare the impact of job reservations on Scheduled Castes and Tribes – the poorest groups in India, with distinct ethnic identities. Have reservations benefited them equally in terms of access to regular salaried jobs? Are returns to educations similar for employed Scheduled Castes and Tribes in terms of their access to regular salaried jobs? I hypothesize 1. If job quotas have benefited Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes equally, then returns to education in the form of access to regular salaried jobs for both groups would be the same. 2. Since gender differences among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are less pronounced, then, if educated and employed, men and women from these groups would stand equal or similar chances of being in regular salaried jobs. I use data from the National Sample Survey, 1993-94 in four multinomial logistic regression models to predict employment allocation. The key independent variable is education, while demographic and household characteristics are controls.