Industry reports show that fresh engineering and non-engineering graduates from Indian universities are not readily employable. The Government-owned Andhra Pradesh Information Technology Academy (APITA) seeks to equip graduates from the state's degree and engineering colleges with industry-relevant skill sets for gainful employment. This study…

As India's higher education sector is poised to grow at a tremendous pace, one of its main challenges would be provision of quality education. Teacher quality has been identified as one of the most critical factors affecting educational quality. As such, the immense importance of attracting high-quality entrants into the teaching profession cannot…

We contrast the intergenerational mobility rates of the historically disadvantaged scheduled castes and tribes (SC/ST) in India with the rest of the workforce in terms of their education attainment, occupation choices and wages. Using survey data from successive rounds of the National Sample Survey between 1983 and 2005, we find that…

We study returns to academic specialisation for Indian corporate sector workers by analysing cross-sectional data on male employees randomly selected from six large firms. Our analysis shows that going to college pays off, as it brings significant incremental returns over and above school education. However, the increase in returns is more…

Recent studies suggest that globalization increases inequality, by increasing skilled wage premiums in developing countries. This effect may be mitigated, however, if human capital responds to global opportunities. I study how the impact of globalization varies across Indian districts with different costs of learning English. Linguistic diversity…

This paper provides an overview of vocational education and training (VET) system in India, and discusses various challenges and difficulties in the Indian VET system. The paper also examines labour market outcomes of vocational graduates and compares these with those of general secondary graduates using a large-scale nationally representative…

This article reports that India's medical profession is in a crisis. For every 10,000 people in India there are only six doctors, compared with nearly 55 in the United States and nearly 21 in Canada. The problem is likely to get worse before it gets better. Professors are leaving medical schools for better-paying jobs in private hospitals and in…

Policy makers confronted with the need to introduce health and safety regulations often wonder how to value the benefits of these regulations. One way that a monetary value could be placed on reductions in health risks, including risk of death, is through understanding how people are compensated for the different risks they take. While there is an…

Aspects of women's employment and status, as well as equality of opportunity and wages, in various countries are examined. (SK)

Slavery flourishes in the modern world. In nations plagued by debilitating poverty, individuals unable to afford food, clothing, and shelter may be compelled to make a devastating decision: to sell themselves or their children into slavery. Nowhere in the world is this more common than India. Conservative estimates suggest that there are 10…

This paper estimates the returns to education for adult male workers in regular and casual wage employment using Indian national survey data at three points in time spanning almost two decades. Both standard and augmented Mincerian wage equations are estimated using a set of human capital measures and other controls after addressing the issue of…