Continuing Caste Inequalities in Rural Uttar Pradesh

Nagendra Kumar Maurya, Giri Institute of Development Studies
Manoj Sharma, Giri Institute of Development Studies

A continuous mixed opinion on the relevance of caste as a factor of socioeconomic disparity in the recent period demands update of evidence on socioeconomic inequalities among caste groups for effective policy making. This study investigates whether the caste inequalities in terms of socioeconomic opportunities and poverty are still persisting in rural Uttar Pradesh (UP) based on village census surveys? Our findings suggest that in spite of more than six decades of welfare policies and major political mobilization movements among lower castes in the state, huge inequalities in terms of critical socioeconomic indicators such as landholding, higher education and wealth distribution and multi-dimensional poverty across the castes are still persisting in the state. Decomposition results suggest that between group inequalities contribute more to the total inequality in landholding whereas within group inequalities contribute maximum to total inequality in education and wealth status of different castes in rural UP.