Uneven Odds

Description

Focussing on patterns of intergenerational stability, this book traces the unequal structures of opportunity in India. The author addresses questions and approaches towards social mobility (or the lack thereof) through interactions between social class, caste, and gender while adopting a rural–urban perspective, capturing changes over time, and the implications of social mobility on a national scale.
This book plugs in crucial gaps in the research on social mobility, which has been marked by the lack of precision regarding the extent of mobility in contemporary India. Using a broad lens of both caste and class, this up-to-date statistical analysis, which uses national-level datasets and advanced quantitative methods, enriches the sociological as well as the anthropological literature, while also locating India within the larger context of social mobility research in the industrialized and industrializing world.

About the Author
Divya Vaid is assistant professor at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. She has a DPhil in sociology from the University of Oxford, UK. Dr Vaid has held postdoctoral research positions at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), India and at the Department of Sociology, Yale University, USA. Her research interests include the study of social stratification, social mobility, inequality, education, and gender.

Reviews

‘This is a landmark study of social mobility in India. Using the most authoritative sources and the best of contemporary research methods, it presents a compelling picture of inequality of opportunity along lines of gender, caste, and social class. This is essential reading for anyone interested in the state of Indian society today’.
—Anthony F. Heath, CBE, FBA, director of the Centre for Social Investigation, Nuffield College, Oxford University, UK

‘Divya Vaid presents, in her immensely readable book, a new language and an imaginative mode of engaging with the significance and value of categories like caste and class in making sense of contemporary India through numbers. While her data shows a weakening effect of caste as a constraining variable for individuals in their mobility struggles, she also underlines the persistent monopolies of privileges at the top and manner in which families actively work towards preserving them for both their sons and daughters.’
—Surinder S. Jodhka, professor of sociology, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

‘This work is sure to set off an informed debate about the dynamics of mobility in the Indian context and the relation between mobility and processes of modernization.’
—Suhas Palshikar, co-director, Lokniti, and retired professor, Department of Politics and Public Administration, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Maharashtra, India

Table of contents

List of Figures, Tables, and Boxes
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations

1 Introduction: Approaching Social Mobility
2 The Indian Context: Caste, Gender, and the Labour Market
3 How Many Classes Are There? Class Debates and Class Schemas
4 How Mobile Is India? Social Mobility Patterns and Trends
5 Cutting Through: Caste and Class Mobility
6 Mobility Mechanisms: The Role of Education
7 Conclusions: Uneven Odds
Appendix A Data and Class Validation
Appendix B Marriage and Mobility
Bibliography
Index
About the Author