Reasons for Inequality in India

Reasons for Inequality in India

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With the annual WID or, the World Inequalities Database and Oxfam reports, as well as Hurun and Forbes' international rich lists, popular discussions on inequality in India receive periodic attention. Discussions about consumption levels (or, more specifically, consumer expenditure) are less common due to a lack of data, while these tend to focus on income and wealth.

From 1972-1973 onward, the NSO or, the National Statistical Organization, formerly known as the NSSO or, the National Sample Survey Organization used to publish nationwide consumer expenditure surveys every five years. However, it has not published a survey since 2011-12. 1 The aftereffects of the 2017-18 study were kept because of worries about "information quality" 2 . This gap has been partially filled by the Consumer Pyramid Household Survey (CPHS) conducted by the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) since 2014. However, a number of researchers have questioned how representative the sample frame is, particularly in terms of covering the extremely poor. inequality in India can be attributed to the following factors:

• Historical motives: discrimination against particular groups of people throughout history. Their options, opportunities, and access to health, education, and employment have all been impacted as a result. Since Independence, policies like reservation have been in place, but they only helped a small number of people in the economic and political spheres and did little to improve social conditions.

• Women were always treated as second-class and inferior to men. Women's employment options are limited, and it is believed that girls' education is a financial burden on the family.

• Informal employment: Around 80 per cent of the Indian workforce is utilized in the informal sector. Without regular pay and social security benefits, jobs in the informal sector are less secure. The wage gap between the formal and informal sectors widens as a result.

• Agriculture is still relied upon by a large number of people, but its contribution to GDP is decreasing.

• Inter-state disparities: The rate of growth has varied across industries and regions. Western and Southern India, for instance, have benefited more than Eastern India from the Green Revolution.

• Research indicates that economic liberalization and globalization have benefited the wealthy more than the poor, increasing inequality. Trade competitiveness has increased as a result of global platforms like the WTO, affecting the returns of local investors and producers.

• The well-known economist Thomas Piketty's paper states that tax progressivity, which is a tool for containing the rise in inequality, was gradually reduced. As privatizations eliminated less unequal government-set pay scales, wage disparity also increased in many sectors.

• Absence of skills enhancement programs