The evolution of poverty and inequality in Indian villages

About

Countries

Data & Research

Learning

News

Projects & Operations

Publications

Topics

Home > Data & Research > Research > Author Profile > Report Details

The evolution of poverty and inequality in Indian villages, Volume 1

Author:	Jayraman, Raji; Lanjouw, Peter;	Collection Title:	Policy, Research working paper ; no. WPS 1870
Country:	India;	Date Stored:	1998/01/01
Document Date:	1998/01/31	Document Type:	Policy Research Working Paper
Language:	English	Major Sector:	(Historic)Social Protection
Region:	South Asia	Report Number:	WPS1870
Sub Sectors:	Other Social Protection	SubTopics:	Water Conservation; Environmental Economics & Policies; Land Use and Policies; Municipal Housing and Land; Banks & Banking Reform; Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems; Rural Land Policies for Poverty Reduction
Volume No:	1

Summary: The authors review longitudinal village studies from a variety of disciplinary perspectives to identify changes in living standards in rural India in recent decades. They scrutinize the main forces of economic changes--agricultural intensification, changes in land relations, and occupational diversification--to explain changes in level and distribution of living standards in rural communities. These forces of economic change appear to have offset or at least mitigated the pressure that growing populations can place on existing resources. But the decline in rural poverty has been slow and irregular at best. Nor is poverty reduction only a matter of economic development. For instance, the rural poor often attribute much of the improvement in their living conditions to reduced dependence on patrons. There are few reports in village studies of particularly effective government policies aimed at reducing poverty. The long-term poor still tend to be from the disadvantaged castes and to live in households that rely on income from agricultural labor. There is little evidence that inequalities within village communities have declined. In some cases improved material well-being of rural households has led to greater social stratification rather than less, with women and members of lower castes suffering the consequences. Such inequalities could limit how policy interventions or continued growth can reduce poverty further. Policymakers must ensure accountability to keep abuses--for example, the privileged classes directing all benefits tothemselves--to a minimum.


Official Documents Official, scanned versions of documents (may include signatures, etc.)
File Type		Description	File Size (mb)

	PDF 64 pages	Official version*	4.48 (approx.)
	Text	Text version**


Light-Weight Documents Lighter (less MB) documents which may or may not be the final, official version
File Type		Description	File Size (mb)

	PDF 60 pages	WPS1870	0.18

* The official version is derived from scanning the final, paper copy of the document and is the official,
archived version including all signatures, charts, etc.

** The text version is the OCR text of the final scanned version and is not an accurate representation of the final text.
It is provided solely to benefit users with slow connectivity.

Permanent URL for this page: http://go.worldbank.org/UU082HD890