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WPS8512

Policy Research Working Paper 8512

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Jati Inequality in Rural Bihar

Shareen Joshi
Nishtha Kochhar
Vijayendra Rao
Public Disclosure Authorized
Public Disclosure Authorized

Development Economics
Development Research Group
July 2018
Policy Research Working Paper 8512

Abstract
Caste is a persistent driver of inequality in India, and it is broad caste categories. The analysis finds that even within
generally analyzed with government-defined broad cate- generally disadvantaged Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
gories, such as Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe. In Tribes, some jatis are significantly worse off than others.
everyday life, however, caste is lived and experienced as Consistent with previous work, the paper also finds that
jati, which is a local system of stratification. Little is known inequality is largely driven by inequality within jatis. This
about economic inequality at the jati level. This paper uses finding has implications for the implementation of large-
data from poor rural districts in Bihar to explore expendi- scale poverty alleviation programs: the benefits of programs
ture inequality at the jati level. Inequality decompositions intended for disadvantaged castes are concentrated among
show much more variation between jatis than between specific jatis.

This paper is a product of the Development Research Group, Development Economics. It is part of a larger effort by the
World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the
world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/research. The authors
may be contacted at [email protected].

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development
issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the
names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those
of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and
its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

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 Jati Inequality in Rural Bihar

Shareen Joshi*, Nishtha Kochhar† and Vijayendra Rao‡

JEL Classification Codes: I3, J1, J4, O1

Keywords: Caste, Inequality, India, Jati
1. Introduction

Most of the academic literature on caste and inequality in India is based on surveys that
use caste categories that are used by the government of India, such as Scheduled Caste (SC) and
Scheduled Tribe (ST).i In everyday life however, caste identity is experienced and practiced as
jāti (henceforth, jati) (Srinivas 1976; Beteille 1996; Kumar and Somanathan 2017). Jatis are
hereditarily formed endogamous groups whose identities are manifested in a variety of ways:
occupational status, property ownership, diet, gender norms, social practices, and religious
practices emphasizing purity and pollution. Each region of India has several hundred jatis. There
is no pan-Indian system of ranking them, and the local rankings of jatis routinely change (Srinivas
1976; Bayly 2001; Rao and Ban 2007). Placement of jatis in broad government “caste” categories
is complicated, and affected by politics and the level of mobilization achieved by the group (Rao
and Ban 2007; Jaffrelot 2011; Cassan 2015).
This paper contributes to the literature on caste and inequality in rural India by analyzing
inequality between and within jatis in rural areas of Bihar, one of India’s poorest states. The data
were collected in 2011 with the intention of conducting an impact evaluation of a state-run rural
livelihoods projects called JEEViKA.ii Though our sample is not representative of the population
of the entire state, it is representative of poor populations in rural areas who are currently eligible
for a variety of poverty-alleviation programs. Rich information on caste, jati, consumption
expenditure and vulnerability makes the data suitable to understand the relationship between caste,
jati, socio-economic status, and access to poverty alleviation programs.
Caste inequality is a form of an “inequality trap”(World Development Report 2006), driven
by social structures that persist over generations. We know that it is a strong predictor of inequality
and poverty. Household surveys confirm that the lowest castes continue to be disadvantaged
relative to the broader population (Dreze and Sen 2002; Government of India 2014, 2017;
Deshpande 2001, 2004; Thorat 2009; Desai and Dubey 2012). Though there is a declining gap in
educational attainment at the primary-school level, there are persistent disparities by caste at higher
levels of education and in labor markets (Desai and Kulkarni 2008; Thorat 2009; Thorat,
Vanneman, Desai and Dubey 2017).
This raises the important question of the extent to which total inequality is driven by jati.
Several papers decompose overall inequality into two components: the sum attributable to
differences in mean outcomes across caste-groups, and to differences within those groups.iii Using
a taxonomy of religious and caste groups in the India Human Development Survey, Boorah,
Diwakar, Naik and Sabharwal (2014) for example find that inequality between government defined
caste groups contributes 11 percent of total inequality in monthly consumption expenditure.
Similar estimates are seen in Mutatkar (2005) and Subramanian and Jayaraj (2006). Lanjouw and
Rao (2011) use a decomposition method adapted from Elbers, Lanjouw, Mistiaen and Ozler (2008)
(known as the ELMO measure) to show that between-jati inequality in income in a North Indian

2
village of Palanpur decreased from 39 percent in 1974/75 to 29 percent in 1983/84. More recent
estimates from Palanpur show that this declined even further to 17 percent by 2008/9. (Himanshu,
Lanjouw, Murgai and Stern 2013).iv
Beyond this literature, very little is known about inequality at the jati level. We know that
most marriages occur within jatis (Desai and Dubey 2010; Banerjee, Duflo, Ghatak and Lafortune
2013), and they tend to cluster spatially, showing differing levels of political mobilization and
access to basic public services (Banerjee and Somanathan 2007). Jati-based networks provide an
extensive insurance network for credit, transfers and insurance during periods of vulnerability
(Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006; Mazzocco 2012). Jati-based disparities in educational attainment
have been remarkably persistent within states over the several decades of India’s post-
independence period (Kumar and Somanathan 2017). Similarly, jati-affiliation also shapes
opportunities for employment and out-migration (Munshi and Rosenzweig 2006; Munshi 2016).
Jati-identity also affects women’s opportunities to work outside the household, make decisions
within the household, and participate in the community (Joshi, Kochhar and Rao 2018).
Jati-level information, thus, may be key to a deeper understanding of the determinants of
inequality in India. Data on jati however, are lacking in most national surveys. We know of no
decomposition of inequality at the jati-level using large samples that are representative at the state
level. This could have significant implications for the design and impact of poverty-alleviation
programs. If some jatis can capture more benefits than others (Kumar and Somnathan 2017), jati
can become an important source of “exclusion error” in the implementation of these programs.
(Government of India 2017: 177).
Our data confirm the persistence of caste-based inequality, with SC and ST populations
generally poorer on average than households from higher-ranked castes. Using the ELMO measure
of inequality decomposition, which permits comparisons when the number of groups varies, we
find that decompositions using government caste categories show that the contribution of between
broad-caste inequality to total inequality stands at less than 1 percent. Decompositions using
between-jati inequality are, however, nearly three times higher. We also estimate the share of
between-jati inequality to total inequality within a broad caste group and find that all the estimates
are below 7 percent. We plot distributions of monthly per-capita expenditure to illustrate that there
is substantial overlap in the distributions of the different jatis and caste-groups, but that some jatis
are - to use the sociologist William Julius Wilson’s term - “truly disadvantaged” (Wilson 1987) -
systematically worse off even within groups that suffer disadvantage. We also examine the role of
caste in accessing large poverty alleviation programs; we examine the state-run rural livelihoods
program that was the reason behind the efforts to collect these data, as well as the Mahatma Gandhi
National Rural Employent Gaurantee Scheme (MNREGS). We find that some jatis, even within
targetted SC and ST groups, participate more than others.
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides an overview of the survey. Section
3 presents results on inequality within jatis. Section 4 illustrates how jati-based inequality affects
participation in poverty alleviation programs. Section 5 concludes.

3
2. Data
Our data were drawn from a 2011 survey of 9,000 households located in seven districts in Bihar
(Table 1). The survey was intended to provide baseline estimates of poverty for an impact
evaluation of JEEViKA, a large anti-poverty program that aimed to empower poor rural women
through investments in community institutions, technical assistance and new sources of finance.
The survey was conducted in 180 randomly selected panchayats, within the 16 blocks of the seven
Jeevika districts. Households were randomly selected from majority SC/ST hamlets (tolas) within
these panchayats. As a result of this design, the survey oversamples SC and ST households. For
our purposes however, this design provides an opportunity to understand the heterogeneity among
these broad groups along the lines of caste and jati.
Our analysis relies entirely on self-reported caste identity, as reported by the head, or chief
decision-maker, of the household.v We identify a jati as a distinct group in our sample if it has at
least 0.5 percent of the households in the sample.vi We classify self-reported jatis into broad caste
groups according to government categories: Scheduled Caste (SC), Extremely Backward Classes
(EBC), Other Backward Classes (OBC), Forward Castes (FC) and Muslims.vii Table 1, panel (b)
provides basic descriptive statistics on jatis, as well as the broad caste groups. Note that SCs, which
include seven main jati groups, account for almost 70 percent of the sample. The next largest group
is OBCs, which consists of five jatis. The EBC group is smaller, including mainly three jatis. We
also include two separate muslim groups, and two jatis under Forward Castes (FCs). Scheduled
Tribes (ST) are less than 1 percent of our sample. These results are likely not representative of the
jati-structure of the state, but are representative of the population that is typically targeted for state-
run poverty alleviation programs. It is also important to know that little is known about the precise
caste-structure of the state since there has been no rigorous caste census in the post-independence
era. viii

3. Results: Jati-Based Inequality

3.1 Descriptive statistics
We begin our analysis by presenting some measures of well-being by government defined broad-
caste categories as well as by jati categories. We include a household’s monthly per capita
consumption expenditure (MPCE), a measure of land holdings (measured in acres), schooling (as
measured by the fraction of household heads who have had any schooling), and the Gini coefficient
of MPCE.
Summary statistics for caste groups are presented in Table 2. Panel (a) presents summary
statistics for the broad groups. Interestingly, the MPCE does not vary considerably across broad
caste groups, with Forward Castes (FC) at 664 rupees and Scheduled Castes at 600 rupees – this
is likely driven by how our sample was structurd – it focussed on the poorest areas of the state.
The overall Gini coefficient is quite low, at just 0.2, with little variation within broad caste groups.
There is however, considerable inequality between groups in land ownership. As a whole, SCs

4
own less than 0.2 acres of land. This is just 11 percent of the landholdings of OBCs and 8 percent
of the landholdings of FCs. Schooling attainment also shows considerable inequality, at 85 percent
of Forward Caste household heads with some schooling and only 37 percent of SCs.
Table 2, panel (b) presents summary statistics at the jati-level. Here, we find even more
variation than we saw at the broad caste-level. Again this is most apparent in measures of
landholding and education. The Musahars, for example, appear to be considerably disadvantaged
even relative to other SC counterparts. They are almost entirely landless (0.07 acres of land versus
the SC average of 0.17 acres of land); have low levels of education (23 percent of household heads
have completed schooling versus the SC average of 36 percent) and their monthly per-capita
expenditure is also approximately 10 percent lower. This is consistent with anthropological studies
that have noted that this jati, geographically concentrated in Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh, is
one of the most politically, economically and socially marginalized groups in India and quite
distinct from other SC jatis (Mukul 1999).ix Similarly, among OBCs, Dhanuks and Kurmis appear
significantly disadvantaged relative to Yadavs on landholding (but not on other indicators). They
own an average of just 1.23 and 1.18 acres of land, respectively, while the Yadavs own an average
of 2.27 acres.x
3.2 Inequality Decompositions
The next step of our analysis is to decompose inequality into between-group and within-
group components. We first visualize the data with kernel density graphs of expenditure
distributions by group, and plots showing the median MPCE for each group with bootstrapped 95
percent confidence intervals. Figure 1.1 shows the kernel density plot of MPCE among broad
castes. Note that the plots for different broad caste groups overlap closely. This is consistent with
the descriptive statistics of this variable and suggests considerable similarity between many of
these groups.
Next, we explore the variations in MPCE at the jati-level. Figure 1.2 presents median
MPCE for each jati with bootstrapped confidence intervals.xi We note considerable variations
within broad groups. Within the SC group, for example, Musahars and Dushads are clearly
disadvantaged relative to other jatis. On the other hand, Sardars are clearly better off than other
SC jatis with the confidence interval of the MPCE overlapping with upper-caste Brahmins. More
generally, differences at the jati-level are more pronounced than at the level of broad caste groups.
The interpretation of these patterns is complicated by the structure of our sample. Recall
that each jati identified by name in our analysis has a representation of at least 0.5 percent in the
total sample. Some groups, such as the Chamars, Musahars and Yadavs, are quite well represented,
at 20 percent, 26 percent and 7 percent, respectively (Table 1). Many other groups are quite small.
To better understand whether the differences between the groups are significantly different from
zero, we perform an exhaustive pair-wise comparison of the MPCE of each jati with that of every
other jati in the sample. Specifically, we use a series of quantile regressions, with bootstrapped
standard errors, to test the null hypothesis of equality of the coefficient of MPCE for each pair of
jatis. The results are presented in Table 3. Note that for the many groups in our sample – Chamars,

5
Dobhas, Dushads, STs, Musahars, Sardars, and Yadavs -- we reject the null hypothesis of equality
of coefficients at least at the 10 percent level of significance. We interpret this as evidence that
these groups are distinct from others in our sample. This is consistent with what we see in Figures
1.1 and 1.2.
Next, we decompose inequality into within- and between-group components. We use two
measures. The first decomposes Theil’s L or GE(0) which belongs to the additively decomposable
General Entropy class of inequality measures (Bourguignon 1979; Cowell 1980; Shorrocks
1980).xii Our second measure, the ‘ELMO’ statistic (Elbers, et al. 2008), normalizes between-
group inequality with the maximum possible between-group inequality given the current income
distribution, relative sub-group size, and their rank order. A key advantage of this measure over
conventional decomposition techniques is that it allows for comparisons between populations with
different numbers of groups and different population sizes. For these reasons, the discussion that
follows focuses on the results from the ELMO measure.xiii
Results on between-group inequality in MPCE are presented in Table 3. Note that in panel
(a), which features broad caste groups, the contribution of between caste inequality to total
inequality is just 0.6 percent using the conventional measure (column b) and 0.8 percent using the
ELMO measure (column c). When we use jati-level groupings however, these go up more than
300 percent to 2.9 and 3.1 percent, respectively. Thus, considerably more inequality is explained
by variations between jatis than variations across government caste categories.xiv
Finally, we examine how much inequality between jatis drives inequality within broad
caste groups. Panel (b) of Table 3 presents decompositions of inequality by jati for each broad
caste group separately. Here we see that the contribution of between-jati inequality to within broad
caste inequality is relatively low, varying from 0.03 percent for Muslims to 6.5 percent for Forward
Castes. Taken together, these estimates suggest that in the poorest communities of rural Bihar,
inequality appears to emerge from variations within caste and jati groups, rather than between
them, which is consistent with other literature on the subject (Lanjouw and Rao 2011; Lanjouw,
Murgai and Stern 2013).
This observation is critical for an informed debate about targeting poverty alleviation in
India. As discussed earlier, affiliation to a broad caste group determines eligibility for a wide range
of government programs and services. Our results suggest that some SC groups, for example, are
truly vulnerable on a range of indicators, and they are a small sub-group of the broader SC
category. Conversely, many non-SC/ST groups are also equally vulnerable.

4. Results: How effective is targeting based on caste?

The results shown above raise the question of whether aggregate caste groupings are an effective
strategy for targeting poverty-alleviation programs, and whether benefits disproportionately accrue
to specific jatis within these caste groupings. We now address this question directly by examining

6
targeting in two anti-poverty programs: (1) the Bihar State Rural Livelihoods Program (BSRLP),
and (2) the MNREGS.
The two programs use two very different approaches to reach the poor. The BSRLP requires
project implementers to identify possible beneficiaries and offer the program services to them.
This approach, which we call “programmatic targeting”, assumes that it is up to the policy maker
to induce participation among the population of beneficiaries. MGNREGS, on the other hand, is a
“self-targeting” program. It assumes that vulnerable individuals who lack better options will
choose to participate on their own.

4.1 Program 1: Livelihoods Programs

We first analyze the State Rural Livelihoods Program. These programs are community-
driven development (CDD) projects that organize women into self-help groups (SHGs) that enable
them to save and access credit. They are now one of the most important anti-poverty programs run
by the Government of India under the umbrella of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission
(NRLM). Programs such as these have generally shown to be reasonably effective in mobilizing
women, increasing savings and building new institutional platforms in villages (Desai and Joshi,
2014; Khanna, Kochhar and Palaniswamy 2015, Sanyal, Rao and Majumdar 2015, Hoffmann et
al 2017).
We obtained information on SHG membership using the endline survey for the evaluation,
conducted in 2013.xv The SHG membership variable is an indicator for participation in the
JEEViKA program. Since the programs treated all the villages in treatment areas, with varying
levels of take-up at the individual level, we restrict our analysis to households in treatment villages.
Of women in the treatment areas of our sample, 43 percent reported participating in an SHG.xvi
We use a simple linear probability model to regress a dummy variable for participation in
JEEViKA on a set of controls. These include age, age squared, marital status of the woman, age
at marriage, a dummy variable for some schooling of the female respondent, a dummy variable for
female household-headship, per-capita expenditure and its square, landholdings, education of the
household head, and household size. We also include panchayat level fixed-effects. We do this
analysis first by adding government defined broad caste categories, with SCs as the omitted
category, as additional right-hand side variables. Then we do a separate analysis for groups of jatis
– first for SC/ST jatis, with non-SC/ST as the omitted group, and then for non-SC/ST jatis with
SC/STs as the omitted group. Regression results are reported in Table 5.1.xvii Key regression
coefficients are depicted graphically in the three panels of Figure 2.1.
Panel (a) of Figure 2.1 shows that all broad-castes have a lower probability of participating
in SHGs than SCs. This result matches the overall program design – the program was actively
promoted among the lowest caste groups. Figures 2.1 (b) and (c) however, show that uptake within
these groups was far from uniform. We see that while most SC and ST groups in Bihar are more
likely to participate in an SHG than non-SC/ST groups, Doms, Adivasis, “Other SCs” and “Other

7
STs” are less likely to participate, indicating a degree of jati-level variation in participation in these
programs. In panel (c), which presents estimates for non-SC/ST jatis relative to excluded SC
groups, we see that participation is much lower for the Shershabedi. This group has a 70 percentage
point lower probability of participating than SC respondents. Brahmins are 19 percentage points
less likely to participate than SCs, and Rajputs are 40 percentage points less likely. There is even
heterogeneity among Muslims: Ansaris are 38 percentage points less likely to participate in these
programs, but other Muslims are only 16 percentage points less likely than their SC counterparts.
The key finding here is that even though the program aimed to offer the program to the
entire groups, the actual take-up shows considerable variation by jati. There are many possible
drivers of this outcome. Geographic clustering, unequal demand for the program due to
occupational patterns or variations in the status of women, the bias of program implementation
teams, etc. can all make a difference to program participation rates. We do not examine those
possible drivers here – we simply highlight that a program that was intended to be for all vulnerable
women within a group was in fact more likely to be utilized by women from specific jatis.

4.2 Program 2: Participation in MGNREGS

Next, we examine the caste and jati-level variations in participation in the MGNREGS.
Our surveys asked households about their possession of a “job card” – a basic pre-requisite to
access guaranteed employment under this program.xviii As before, we use a linear probability model
to regress a dummy variable for possession of a job-card using the same set of baseline controls as
in the previous specifications. We use both broad caste categories, and then jati-level regressions
that first exclude non-SC/ST jatis and then exclude SC/ST jatis.
Results are presented in Table 5.2 and Figure 2.2. When we use broad caste categories, we
see the expected pattern of lower participation in non-SC/ST groups. However, when we treat
these groups as the omitted category and examine participation within the SC/ST group, we see
considerable heterogeneity. We see in panel (b) for example, that Musahars show the strongest
participation, followed by Chamars and Dushads, when compared to non-SC/ST jatis. They are
four times more likely to possess a job-card than Dobha households and almost twice as likely to
possess a job-card as Sardar households. In figure 2.2(c), we observe heterogeneity in take-up
among OBCs who are less likely to participate in MGNREGS, presumably because of their higher
socio-economic status. Shershabedias are significantly less likely to participate even in comparison
to other OBC jatis.
In summary, the results from household participation in both these anti-poverty programs
suggest that beneficiaries seem to be concentrated in specific jatis. The contrast between
programmatic targeting and self-targeting is also interesting. The two leading sets of beneficiaries
are quite different, suggesting that self-targeting has different effects by jati than programmatic
targeting. Moreover, inequality within jatis seems to matter less for self-targeting than
programmatic targeting. We emphasize that the differences in the jati-level variations in take-up

8
of these two types of programs could be driven by a variety of factors – incentives, program
participation requirements, geographic rollout strategies, etc. The participation of specific jatis in
each program is however, quite striking and an important topic for further investigation.
These findings on the significance of jati in the participation of two very different poverty
alleviation programs may have important policy implications for the design of policies in
contemporary India. The recently released Economic Survey of India for example, highlights the
existence of 950 poverty alleviation programs at the national level, and hundreds more at the state-
level. The report acknowledges targeting inefficiencies in the form “exclusion error” and argues
that “leakages” are largely due to the presence of loopholes, the lack of transparency and failures
of accountability (Government of India 2017: 177). Our results suggest that the program benefits
may be affected by social identity (Kumar and Somanathan 2017). Our findings also corroborate
the findings of past studies that highlight the difficulty of targeting more generally (Galasso and
Ravallion 2005).

5. Conclusion
This paper has examined the relationship between caste and inequality in Bihar. We use data from
a large sample survey collected in rural and relatively poor districts of the state in 2011 to compare
patterns of inequality that emerge from two definitions of caste. The first is the conventional broad
categorization that is used by the government (“Scheduled Caste”, “Scheduled Tribe”, etc.); and
the second is the narrower categorization of jati identity through which caste is practiced in
everyday life. Keeping in mind that the data only tell us about the poorest rural areas of the state,
we find some caste-based differences in average monthly per capita expenditures. SC and ST
populations are on average poorer than households from higher ranked castes, but there is
considerable variation by jati.
We find that jati has a great influcence on inequality. When we use broad caste groups, the
contribution of between-caste inequality to total inequality is relatively low, just 0.8 percent.
Consistent with the previous studies, we find most inequality occurs within rather than between
castes. When we use jati-level groupings however, this number goes up to 3.2 percent. Even within
some broad-caste categories, we find that a great deal of inequality is driven by jati-level variation.
Of Forward Caste inequality for example, 6.5 percent is explained by between-jati inequality.
Some jatis, such as the Musahars, appear to be “truly disadvantaged” within the disadvantaged
groups.
All this has implications for targeting anti-poverty programs. We examine jati-level variation in
participation in the MGNREGS and the State Livelihoods Programs, two of rural India’s most
important efforts to alleviate poverty. We find that after controlling for a variety of socio-economic
variables, there remains a lot of variation at the jati level. Doms and Adivasis are less likely to
participate in the livelihoods program, while Dobhas and Sardars are less likely to have an
MGNREGS card.

9
In summary, our analysis calls for a more nuanced approach to understanding the relationship
between caste and inequality in India. Jati matters not just in understanding group-based inequality,
but in thinking about how to address it with anti-poverty programs.

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Tables and figures
Table 1: Sample Descriptive Statistics, N=8973
(a): Districts Percent of (b): Caste Percent of (c): Jati (sub-caste) Percent of
Sample Sample Sample
Gaya 3.38 SC 69.93 SC: Chamar 20.44
Madhepura 31.06 ST 1.13 SC: Dobha/Dobh 2.51
Madhubani 5.07 OBC 16.9 SC: Dom 0.67
Muzzafarpur 18.51 EBC 4.65 SC: Dushad 16.72
Nalanda 5.58 Muslim 3.82 SC: Musahar 25.93
Saharsa 19.06 FC 3.58 SC: Pasi 0.89
Supaul 17.34 SC: Sardar 2.08
Other SCs 0.69
ST: Adivasi 0.86
Other STs 0.27
OBC: Dhanuk 1.19
OBC: Koeri 0.91
OBC: Kurmi 1.27
OBC: Shershabadia 0.78
OBC: Yadav 6.56
Other OBCs 6.17
EBC: Keuta 0.53
EBC: Mallah 0.76
EBC: Nat 0.99
Other EBCs 2.36
Muslim: Ansari 0.68
Other Muslims 3.14
FC: Brahmin 1.34
FC: Rajput 1.46
Other FCs 0.78
Source: Authors' calculations based on data collected by Social Observatory, World Bank and
Government of Bihar, Odisha and Tamil Nadu, respectively.

13
Table 2: Sample Characteristics by broad caste category
Proportion of
Average monthly per household heads who
capita expenditure (in Average land completed some
rupees) ownership (in acres) schooling Gini coefficient
Panel (a): Caste 610.04 0.505 0.434 0.203
SC 600.29 0.174 0.368 0.194
ST 580.00 1.306 0.474 0.199
OBC 629.36 1.469 0.594 0.227
EBC 612.84 0.652 0.496 0.207
Muslim 657.88 0.424 0.452 0.200
FC 664.01 2.050 0.849 0.224
Panel (b): Jatis 610.04 0.505 0.434 0.203
SC: Chamar 634.55 0.146 0.463 0.199
SC: Dobha/Dobh 625.22 0.463 0.505 0.198
SC: Dom 662.51 0.015 0.237 0.175
SC: Dushad 601.80 0.270 0.449 0.198
SC: Musahar 560.91 0.075 0.226 0.180
SC: Pasi 639.55 0.534 0.563 0.209
SC: Sardar 668.98 0.501 0.333 0.214
Other SCs 619.74 0.109 0.387 0.174
ST: Adivasi 588.96 1.283 0.459 0.177
Other STs 551.26 1.378 0.522 0.257
OBC: Dhanuk 592.43 1.232 0.452 0.190
OBC: Koeri 575.14 1.437 0.728 0.209
OBC: Kurmi 639.90 1.180 0.609 0.222
OBC: Shershabadi 648.99 0.425 0.388 0.243
OBC: Yadav 603.00 2.266 0.639 0.238
Other OBCs 667.91 0.863 0.577 0.218
EBC: Keuta 576.51 1.020 0.404 0.224
EBC: Mallah 615.59 0.251 0.258 0.204
EBC: Nat 653.77 0.617 0.616 0.224
Other EBCs 603.00 0.712 0.544 0.193
Muslim: Ansari 641.32 0.526 0.424 0.200
Other Muslims 661.46 0.402 0.459 0.200
FC: Brahmin 701.39 1.533 0.847 0.213
FC: Rajput 687.27 2.439 0.892 0.231
Other FCs 556.43 2.206 0.768 0.200
Source: Authors' calculations based on data collected by Social Observatory, World Bank and Government of Bihar.

14
15
Table 3: Tests of the null hypothesis of equality of medians of per‐capital expenditure

Broad caste and Jati Number of rejections of Broad caste and Jati Number of rejections of
group the null hypothesis of group the null hypothesis of
equality equality
SC: Chamar 8 OBC: Dhanuk 0
SC: Dobha/Dobh 5 OBC: Koeri 4
SC: Dom 1 OBC: Kurmi 0
SC: Dushad 6 OBC: Shershabadia 0
SC: Musahar 11 OBC: Yadav 5
SC: Pasi 1 Other OBCs 3
SC: Sardar 8 EBC: Keuta 1
Other SCs 0 EBC: Mallah 1
ST: Adivasi 2 EBC: Nat 0
Other STs 9 Other EBCs 3
Muslim: Ansari 21 FC: Brahmin 23
Other Muslims 22 FC: Rajput 24
Other FCs 25
Notes: (1) Source: Authors' calculations based on data collected by Social Observatory, World Bank and Government of Bihar. (2) We
test the equality of median per-capita expenditure between all pairwise combinations, i.e. jati i and jati j (i=1,…,24 and j=1,…,24),
using quantile regression with bootstrapped standard errors, with 1000 replications. The null hypothesis of equality is rejected if the
coefficient is significant at least the 10% level. The 24 jati groups in our sample have at least 0.5% representation in our sample.

Table 4: Inequality in monthly per capita consumption expenditure

(a) Overall Inequality (b) Conventional measure of (c) ELMO measure of

(GE(0)) between group inequality between group inequality
Panel (a): Caste
6 broad caste groupings 0.0666 0.0064 0.0083
16 jati groupings 0.0666 0.0292 0.0305
Panel (b): Jati
SC (8 groups including others) 0.0610 0.0258 0.0297
ST(2 groups including others) 0.0660 0.0059 0.0118
OBC (6 groups including others) 0.0842 0.0164 0.0207
EBC (4 groups including others) 0.0683 0.0107 0.0114
Muslims (2 groups including others) 0.0641 0.0011 0.0029
FC (3 groups including others) 0.0835 0.0483 0.0652

Notes: (1) Source: Authors' calculations based on data collected by Social Observatory, World Bank and Government of Bihar. (2) In
Panel (b), we restrict the sample to each broad caste category and estimate the inequality between jatis within that broad caste group. The
number of jatis per broad caste category is indicated in brackets.

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Table 5.1: Program targeting: JEEVIKA
(a) Government caste categories (b) SC/ST jatis (c) Non SC/ST jatis
ST -0.160 SC: Chamar 0.140*** OBC: Dhanuk -0.122
(0.089) (0.024) (0.075)
OBC -0.078*** SC: Dobha/Dobh 0.048 OBC: Koeri -0.104
(0.023) (0.053) (0.073)
EBC -0.076* SC: Dom -0.235* OBC: Kurmi -0.185*
(0.037) (0.102) (0.074)
Muslim -0.170*** SC: Dushad 0.179*** OBC: Shershabadia -0.700***
(0.042) (0.024) (0.092)
FC -0.300*** SC: Musahar 0.061* OBC: Yadav -0.044
(0.039) (0.024) (0.033)
SC: Pasi 0.077 Other OBCs -0.023
(0.077) (0.035)
SC: Sardar 0.044 EBC: Keuta -0.041
(0.072) (0.115)
Other SCs -0.352*** EBC: Mallah -0.194*
(0.091) (0.089)
ST: Adivasi -0.028 EBC: Nat -0.023
(0.105) (0.091)
Other STs -0.175 Other EBCs -0.057
(0.161) (0.046)
FC: Brahmin -0.195**
(0.062)
FC: Rajput -0.402***
(0.045)
Other FCs -0.266**
(0.087)
Muslims: Ansari -0.379**
(0.123)
Some Schooling -0.120** Some Schooling -0.150*** Some Schooling -0.124**
(0.043) (0.043) (-0.043)
Female headed 0.045* Female headed 0.038 Female headed 0.043
household (0.022) household (0.023) household (0.022)
Per capita expenditure 0.118 Per capita expenditure 0.114 Per capita expenditure 0.108
(0.103) (0.103) (0.102)
Per capita expenditure -0.037 Per capita expenditure -0.040 Per capita expenditure -0.030
squared (0.053) squared (0.054) squared (0.053)
Land -0.017*** Land -0.020*** Land -0.019***
(0.005) (0.005) (0.005)
Observations 4187 Observations 4187 Observations 4187
Adjusted R-squared 0.130 Adjusted R-squared 0.136 Adjusted R-squared 0.136
Notes: (1) SC is the omitted caste group in column (a), Non-SC/ST jatis are the omitted group in column (b) and SC/ST jatis are the
omitted group in column (c). (2) Each column represents a separate regression wherein household's participation in NREGA is
regressed on caste identity variables and a set of controls: age, age squared, marital status, age at marriage, a dummy variable for any
schooling; a dummy variable for household female-headship, per-capital expenditure, per-capita expenditure squared, landholdings,
education of the household head, number of members in the household and panchayat level fixed-effects; (3) Robust standard errors
are in brackets. (4) We report the level of significance: * p value < .05 , ** p value < .01 and *** p value < .001.

17
Table 5.2: Program targeting: MGNREGA
(a) Government caste categories (b) SC/ST jatis (c) Non SC/ST jatis
ST -0.099 SC: Chamar 0.239*** OBC: Dhanuk -0.194***
(0.058) (0.016) (0.047)
OBC -0.223*** SC: Dobha/Dobh 0.063 OBC: Koeri -0.235***
(0.015) (0.033) (0.045)
EBC -0.187*** SC: Dom -0.065 OBC: Kurmi -0.180***
(0.024) (0.055) (0.043)
Muslim -0.315*** SC: Dushad 0.244*** OBC: Shershabadia -0.660***
(0.027) (0.017) (0.098)
FC -0.327*** SC: Musahar 0.294*** OBC: Yadav -0.228***
(0.024) (0.015) (0.022)
SC: Pasi 0.022 Other OBCs -0.212***
(0.049) (0.022)
SC: Sardar 0.166** EBC: Keuta -0.292***
(0.052) (0.068)
Other SCs 0.069 EBC: Mallah -0.135*
(0.065) (0.060)
ST: Adivasi 0.125 EBC: Nat -0.060
(0.064) (0.050)
Other STs 0.219 Other EBCs -0.229***
(0.124) (0.032)
FC: Brahmin -0.405***
(0.032)
FC: Rajput -0.330***
(0.034)
Other FCs -0.166**
(0.053)
Muslims: Ansari -0.304***
(0.076)
Other Muslims -0.320***
(0.028)
Some Schooling -0.187*** Some Schooling -0.183*** Some Schooling -0.187***
(0.029) (0.029) (0.029)
Female headed -0.051*** Female headed -0.050** Female headed -0.053***
household (0.015) household (0.015) household (0.015)
Per capita expenditure -0.134* Per capita expenditure -0.116 Per capita expenditure -0.134*
(0.067) (0.067) (0.067)
Per capita expenditure 0.032 Per capita expenditure 0.027 Per capita expenditure 0.032
squared (0.034) squared (0.035) squared (0.035)
Land -0.021*** Land -0.021*** Land -0.022***
(0.003) (0.003) (0.003)
Observations 8637 Observations 8637 Observations 8637
Adjusted R-squared 0.180 Adjusted R-squared 0.188 Adjusted R-squared 0.183
Notes: (1) SC is the omitted caste group in column (a), Non-SC/ST jatis are the omitted group in column (b) and SC/ST jatis are the
omitted group in column (c). (2) Each column represents a separate regression wherein household's participation in NREGA is
regressed on caste identity variables and a set of controls: age, age squared, marital status, age at marriage, a dummy variable for any
schooling; a dummy variable for household female-headship, per-capital expenditure, per-capita expenditure squared, landholdings,
education of the household head, number of members in the household and panchayat level fixed-effects; (3) Robust standard errors
are in brackets. (4) We report the level of significance: * p value < .05 , ** p value < .01 and *** p value < .001.

18
19
*
School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, 3700 “O” St. NW, Washington DC, 20057; Phone: (202) 997-6017; Email:
[email protected]
†
Department of Economics, Georgetown University, 3700 “O” St. NW, Washington DC, 20057; Email: [email protected]
‡
Development Research Group, World Bank, Washington DC; Email: [email protected]

The authors are grateful to seminar participants at the Delhi School of Economics, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi, and the
Workshop on Human Capital at Indian School of Business, Hyderabad for valuable comments and suggestions. The authors also
thank Martin Ravallion, Ashwini Deshpande, Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay, E. Somanathan, Farzana Afridi, Francisco Ferriera,
Hemanshu Kumar, Rohini Somanathan, Irfan Nooruddin and Tarun Jain, for insightful comments and discussions. They are
indebted to the World Bank’s South Asia Food and Nutrition Security Initiative (SAFANSI), funded by the EU and DfID, for
financial support. This paper reflects the individual views of the authors and does not in any way represent the official position of
the World Bank or its member countries.

i
After independence, additional groups were added to the SC and ST lists and additional groups were created such as Backward
Caste (BC), Extremely Backward Caste (EBC) and Other Backward Caste (OBC). Introduced by colonial administrators in 1935,
these broad groups included many different types of sub-groups witin them and the grounds for inclusion often appeared to be
arbitrary (Bayly 2001; Dirks 2001; Cassan 2015), and the lists have been amended and expanded over time. The Government of
India Act of 1935 listed 417 groups in the list of Scheduled castes. The Constitution of India of 1950 increased this to 821. In
1956, this was raised to 1,119. After 1976, additional orders were passed that enlarged the number of castes by adding more castes
as equivalent names and synonyms and sub-castes / tribes of existing SCs and STs. In 1990, an amendment was passed by the
Indian Parliament to include prior SC groups that had converted to Buddhism. The original list as well as updated lists of SC, ST
groups for all states is available through the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India at the following
website (accessed on June 1, 2017): https://web.archive.org/web/20120913050030/http://socialjustice.nic.in:80/sclist.php

20
ii
This is also known as the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project.
iii
This literature follows Bourguignon (1979), Cowell (1980) and Shorrocks (1980), who decompose total inequality into
inequality between subgroups and within subgroups and permit the quantification of the “contribution” of inequality from sub-
groups to overall inequality.
iv
Another strand of this literature uses the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, and its variants, to identify the structural drivers of
inequality (Boorah 2005; Kijima 2006; Gang, Sen and Yun 2008; Zacharias and Vakulabharanam 2011; Deininger, Jin and
Nagarajan 2013). A consistent theme of this literature is the persistence of systematic disparities across different caste groups over
long periods of time that are not fully explained by differences in human capital investment, labor market returns or location of
residence (state or rural/urban residence).
v
We rely on verbatim responses to the jati and caste-status reported by the respondent to the household module, who is the
household head in majority cases. Where self-reported caste status deviates from the rest of the jati group, we preserve the jati
response and assign the caste status of the jati’s modal household.
vi
Jatis with smaller sub-samples are grouped together into a category we call “Others” defined separately for each caste-group.
vii
The Government of India has categorized disadvantaged castes into three main categories - Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled
Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Castes (OBC). The Government of Bihar also recognizes an additional group of Extremely
Backward Classes (EBC), which were originally included in the broader OBC group.
viii
A nationwide caste census was conducted as part of the Socio-Economic and Caste Census in 2011, but results have not been
released by the Government of India.
ix
Traditionally “rat-catchers,” the Musahars are now largely agricultural laborers and Musahar men have increasingly migrated out
of the state with women joining the labor force (Mukul 1999). The Chamar jati, on the other hand, though also classified as SC, is
found throughout India and consists of many different sub-jatis that vary significantly in status. In many states such as Uttar
Pradesh and Punjab, they have been successful in mobilizing themselves politically.
x
Yadavs are traditionally a group of jatis whose main occupations were related to dairy farming and pastoral agriculture in the
Bihar and Uttar Pradesh region (Hutton 1946). The group now includes a wide range of pastoral agriculturalists in numerous states
of India. Since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it has mobilized itself to improve its social standing (Jaffrelot
2003).
xi
The bootstrap is performed for 1,000 iterations.
xii
For a distribution, , ,…, , the general formula of the General Entropy class of inequality measures is given by
∑ 1 where is mean income. An inequality measure, I, from a partition Π can be decomposed as Π
Π , where Π is the inequality from between group differences and Π is the inequality attributed to within group
differences. Given a particular partition Π of the sample and an inequality measure I, the conventional measure of between group
inequality is given by Π . For further details, refer to Cowell and Jenkins (1995), Elbers et al (2008).
xiii
The traditional ELMO measure is given by Π |
; where the denominator is the maximum between group
,
inequality that can be obtained by reassigning individuals across J subgroups in partition Π of size . An illustration of this
measure can be found in Lanjouw and Rao (2011). In order to minimize the computational burden in estimating the maximum
subgroup inequality, we use an alternative measure proposed in Elbers et al. (2008), which the authors refer to as the ‘alternative’
ELMO statistic. In addition to fixing the number and sizes of subgroups, it requires that subgroups be arrayed according to their
observed mean incomes- preserving their rank order.
xiv
These estimates are lower than previously reported estimates of the contribution of between-caste inequality to inequality
in India, but we emphasize that we are examining the poorest areas of one of the poorest states, with low overall levels of inequality
(Mutakar 2005; Subramanian and Jayaraj 2006; Boorah et al. 2014).

xv
Endline surveys were collected at a gap of 1.5 to 2 years from the baseline surveys. We merge the SHG membership from these
surveys with the baseline data.
xvi
In our sample, although membership under PVP SHGs is only 21 percent, SHG membership as a whole is almost 50 percent,
which reflects the long history of the SHG movement in Tamil Nadu.
xvii
We report full regression results only for the broad caste regressions. For the jati regressions we only report the jati
coefficients.
xviii
Households must have a job-card to participate in the program. Each rural household is entitled to a free job card with
photographs of all adult members living in the household. These adult members may then apply for employment and the

21
government is obliged to provide work within 5 km of the applicant’s residence within a period of 15 days. Failure to obtain
employment entitles the applicant to unemployment insurance (Dutta, Murgai, Ravallion and de Walle, 2014: 71).

22