Inequalities across race, tribe and caste Understanding Inequality - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Inequalities across race, tribe and caste

Understanding Inequality in Brazil and India

Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi 17 February 2015

Introduction

• Do caste in India and race in Brazil play similar roles in

inequality?

• Discrimination in the labour market principally occurs

in three ways:

– through barriers to entry in the labour market; – through restricted occupational mobility within the internal labour markets; – different returns to work for the same occupation.

• Social groups and race plays an important role in those

three ways.

What is “race” in Brazil?

• Race is not defined by biological factors, but is it a “social

construct”.

• Racial cleavages in Brazil are the product of ideological

remnant of its slavery past and the historical transformation of racial relations and disparities during the industrialization and urbanization process on XX Century.

• Race is a self-identified information in Brazilian surveys.

The racial differentiation has no legal or institutional basis.

• The perception of each individual on their own race may

change depending on the social context in which he finds himself.

The caste system in India

• The caste system in India is based on the principle that

each caste has a fixed hereditary occupation by birth, resulting in a well-defined pattern of inclusions and exclusions in society.

• Some disadvantaged sections of the population were

categorised into distinct groups by The Constitution in 1950.

• Indian constitution prohibits caste-based

discrimination, and over the years since Independence a variety of policies have attempted to overcome this form of inequality; but it persists.

Brazil: distribution of population by race (%)

• Non-white is not a

sociological category, but just a way of putting together “racial” groups that have in common a relative distance from the

• ther group, the whites.
• In socioeconomic

terms, mixed people are in between the blacks and the whites, but much closer to the former.

1995 2011 White White 54,4% 47,8% Yellow 0,5% 0,6% Non- white Black 4,9% 8,2% Mixed-colour 40,1% 43,1% Indigenous 0,1% 0,4%

Source: PNAD

India: distribution of population by social groups (%)

• Scheduled Castes (SCs)
• Scheduled Tribes (STs)
• Other Backward Classes

(OBCs): Hindu caste groups located in the middle of the caste hierarchy

• Others: middle and upper

caste. social group 2011 STs 8,5% SCs 19,7% OBCs 41,1% Others 30,8% Total 100,0%

Brazil: employment status across race (%)

• The non-whites are
• ver-represented

among the unpaid workers and the self- employed

• But there is a large

increase in the share of registered employment among blacks and mixed-colour workers

• Racial segmentation in

the labour market still persists, but has been less intense.

34 46 44 54 27 23 18 16 24 21 22 20 2 2 6 5 12 7 10 5

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

1995 2011 1995 2011 Non-white White Registered Employee Non-registered Employee Self-Employed Employer Unpaid

Source: PNAD

India: employment status across social groups (%)

• Disadvantaged social

groups are mainly engaged in sectors that are less productive with low levels of income.

• Casual wage

earners, both in the rural and urban areas, come disproportionately from the SC and ST communities.

• Regular forms of

employment in both public and private sectors are dominated by the upper castes.

35 37 49 54 57 55 60 58 10 15 7 9 12 16 22 26 54 48 44 38 31 29 18 16 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 1999-00 2011-12 1999-00 2011-12 1999-00 2011-12 1999-00 2011-12 SCs STs OBCs Others

Self employed Regular Casual Workers

Brazil: labour income ratios between white and non-white workers

• Downward trend in

labour income ratio across race.

• The fall in the ratio
• ccurs in every

employment status, but it remains higher among the informal workers.

• This helped to

decrease the racial inequality in the distribution of labour income

1.70 1.73 2.00 1.51 2.05 1.47 1.45 1.70 1.38 1.66

0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50

1995 2011

Source: PNAD

India: wage ratios between social groups

• Upper castes in

regular, urban work had significantly higher earnings than

• ther groups; and STs

had significantly lower earnings in casual work than

• ther groups.
• Overall there is some

sign of wage differentials widening, with STs doing badly and upper castes doing well.

Rural Urban Regular Casual Regular Casual 1999- 2000 SC/ST 0,81 1,19 0,80 1,17 OBC/SC 1,15 1,01 0,94 1,07 Others/OBC 1,30 1,09 1,47 1,03 2011- 2012 SC/ST 0,86 1,20 0,77 1,17 OBC/SC 1,09 1,02 1,11 1,06 Others/OBC 1,28 0,99 1,55 0,87

Brazil: distribution of white and non-white

• ccupied workers by level of education (%)
• The shares of non-

white workers with complete primary, secondary and higher education jumped, compared to the same shares of white workers.

• Reduction of the gap

in the educational attainment between white and non-white workers, however, it still very uneven.

23.7 12.7 9 5.7 54.2 31.2 48.8 22.9 10.4 18.3 14.9 16.2 9.8 31.4 18.5 38.1 1.8 6.3 8.8 17.2

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

1995 2011 1995 2011 Non white White

No schooling

• Incomp. Primary Educ.
• Comp. Primary Educ.

Secondary Educ. Higher Educ.

Source: PNAD

India: Literacy rates among SCs, STs and total population (%)

• The gaps in literacy

rates between SCs, STs and others have declined substantially, especiall y after 1980.

• However, the caste

inequalities persist in secondary and tertiary education, which are required for access to good jobs.

28 34 43 52 64 10 14 21 37 54 8 11 16 29 47 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

1961 1971 1981 1991 2001

Total Population Scheduled Castes Scheduled Tribes

Summing up

• Historical inequalities among population groups, with different origins but

with similar effects, give rise to unequal labour market opportunities, and these are reflected in labour market structures.

• In India the primary mechanism is one of exclusion of lower castes from

good jobs. Whereas in Brazil there are more open job access, but larger wage differentials within labour market segments, which might for instance reflect more limited options for progression for non-whites.

• The results also point to the effect of pre-labour market inequality, which

are reflected by the low educational attainment of non-whites in Brazil and the unequal access to education for lower castes in India.

• There are signs that at least some aspects of racial inequality are declining

in Brazil; while in India, caste and community differences are very

• persistent. This is also reflected in an increased, but still limited, social

mobility of the non-whites, while in India it would only happen for some groups.