27 November, 2025Is Language a bridge or barrier? Linguistic distance and the health of women and children
India is a linguistically diverse country with a large flow of internal migrants. This article demonstrates that the greater the “linguistic distance” between a woman’s native language and the d...
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Advaith Jayakumar Anisha Sharma 
10 November, 2025
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Markets, marriage, and norms: Understanding female labour force participation in India
Despite recent gains in India’s female labour force participation rate due to rural self-employment, women’s work in the country remains constrained by factors on both the demand and supply side. ...
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Farzana Afridi
- 03 November, 2025
- Perspectives
How dowry shapes migration decisions in modern India
While migration is a critical driver of economic development, it may disrupt arrangements wherein parents rely on sons for old-age support. Leveraging new survey data, this article shows that at the t...
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Natalie Bau Gaurav Khanna Alessandra Voena
- 23 October, 2025
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The escalating financial burden of child births
Data from the 2019-20 National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 show that in several states, the proportion of institutional deliveries remain below the national average, with high out-of-pocket expendit...
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Prem Shankar Mishra T.S. Syamala
- 30 July, 2021
- Perspectives
Evolution of dowry in rural India: Evidence from 1960-2008
Despite being illegal since 1961, dowry continues to be a widespread phenomenon in rural India. In the first of a two-part series, this article tracks the evolution of dowry during 1960-2008 across st...
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S Anukriti Sungoh Kwon Nishith Prakash
- 01 July, 2021
- Articles
How dowry influences household decisions in rural India
It is widely believed that Indian parents start saving for dowry as soon as a daughter is born. In the second of a two-part series on dowry in rural India, this article examines how dowry influences h...
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S Anukriti Sungoh Kwon Nishith Prakash
- 01 July, 2021
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India’s ‘missing girls’: Women’s education and declining child sex-ratios
Although women’s education has been proposed as a solution to the persistent issue of ‘missing girls’ in India, studies have reached contradictory conclusions on the impact of female education o...
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Pradeep Chhibber Francesca R. Jensenius Susan L Ostermann
- 30 June, 2021
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Lineage norms and women’s political participation
While reservation for local political representation of women has made major headway, this has not addressed the structural problems that prevent the full incorporation of women into politics. Based ...
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Rachel Brulé Nikhar Gaikwad
- 23 June, 2021
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Reducing intimate partner violence: Laying the groundwork with young males
Two out of five ever-married women in Bihar have experienced marital violence. Based on a study of ‘Do Kadam Barabari Ke Ore’ – a programme imparting gender-transformative life skills to young ...
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K.G. Santhya A.J. Francis Zavier
- 02 June, 2021
- Notes from the Field
Fruits of liberation? Women’s work participation and adoption of household appliances
Does increase in women’s work participation lead to greater adoption of household appliances, or is it the other way round? To address this question, this article analyses US data from the Second Wo...
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Gautam Bose Tarun Jain Sarah Walker
- 28 May, 2021
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Does gender (still) determine destiny in India?
Emerging evidence of convergence in educational attainment between girls and boys seems at odds with a large body of research on gender-based discrimination against girls in India. In this context, th...
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M. Shahe Emran Hanchen Jiang Forhad Shilpi
- 21 May, 2021
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Sex workers, stigma, and self-image: Evidence from Kolkata’s brothels
Being poor or marginalised often brings stigma, which may distort a person’s self-image, inducing sub-optimal choices and resulting in a psychological poverty trap. Based on a study conducted in Kol...
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Sayantan Ghosal Smarajit Jana Anandi Mani Sandip Mitra Sanchari Roy
- 13 May, 2021
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Women and work: How much does measurement matter?
Female labour force participation in India has been on the decline – dropping from an already low 29% in 2004-05 to 17% in 2017-18. However, the extent of women’s economic participation depends o...
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Milan Vaishnav
- 10 May, 2021
- Articles
Women’s legal rights and gender gaps in property ownership
Amendments to succession laws have sought to address gender-based discrimination in property inheritance in India. Analysing Demographic and Health Survey data, collected in about 40 countries since 2...
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Isis Gaddis Rahul Lahoti Hema Swaminathan
- 23 April, 2021
- Articles
Dowries and women’s well-being post marriage
Dowries are transfers of wealth from the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage. Analysing nationally representative survey data from rural India, this article shows that do...
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Rossella Calvi Ajinkya Keskar
- 12 April, 2021
- Articles
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost Popular Social Identity Posts
Hindu-Muslim fertility differentials in India: An update
Building on past research, Saswata Ghosh and Pallabi Das estimate the state- and district-level fertility differentials between Hindus and Muslims using data from the latest round of the NFHS. They sh...
- Pallabi Das Saswata Ghosh
- 18 April, 2023
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A division of labourers: Caste identity and efficiency in India
Castes in India are closely associated with certain occupations and determine the jobs done by millions. This study uses a new dataset to show that a large proportion of workers still work in their ca...
- Guilhem Cassan Daniel Keniston Tatjana Kleineberg
- 18 November, 2022
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Measuring caste inequality across Indian states
Although recent research on inequality shows that upper castes have the highest levels of material well-being, there is a wide variation in caste inequality across India. Measuring three forms of cast...
- Poulomi Chakrabarti
- 13 September, 2021
- Articles