Socio economic dimensions of caste structure in India: an empirical study using the NFHS-2

Sandhya Mahapatro, Institute for Social and Economic Change

Caste is used as a critical variable in large scale demographic survey to examine the differential in various demographic indicators and also become an integral part of social change. This study aims to examine the intercaste and intracaste differential across the caste groups on the basis of level of development of states of India taking into consideration various socio economic indicators, using the data of NFHS-2(1998-99). Bivariate analysis has been adopted to study the differentials among the caste groups by sex and place of residence. Besides this Principal Component Analysis has been used to arrive at the quintile distribution of population. T-test is carried out to examine the differentials among the caste groups. The findings of the study shows that intercaste differential among the caste groups have been narrowed down but intracaste differential still exist.