Unequal Inequalities in India: Income and Non-income Dimensions
- First Online: 01 June 2023
Cite this chapter
- Achin Chakraborty 3
Part of the book series: India Studies in Business and Economics ((ISBE))
80 Accesses
We have focused on a range of issues that have surfaced in discussions on the growing economic inequality in India in both income and non-income dimensions. First, we present a brief account of the changing nature of income inequality during and after the COVID pandemic drawing on various sources. During COVID-19, the rising inequality has been associated with an absolute decline in the economic conditions of a large number of people, unlike in the period since the 1980s when most people experienced some gain but the poorer classes gained rather less. The central argument in the paper is that economic inequality had been high in India for quite some time, and COVID pandemic has exacerbated it in the most recent period. Using two rounds of IHDS and applying the technique of decomposition, we find that overall inequality increased but the contribution of inequality between social groups to the overall inequality declined. We then presented an alternative procedure which would allow us to find out how each of the groups fared vis-à-vis others. Finally, we looked at changes in child stunting between NFHS-3 and NFHS-4 across different states, as an instance of inequality in non-income dimensions. Applying three different methods, we find that in five states, the declines in the bottom quintile of households were more than the average decline, whereas in four states, declines were less than average, across all the three methods. The overall purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that if we want make a substantive statement on changes in economic inequality in India, we need to use multiple sources of data and carefully consider multiple methods in order to check robustness of the statement.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Subscribe and save.
- Get 10 units per month
- Download Article/Chapter or eBook
- 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
- Cancel anytime
- Available as PDF
- Read on any device
- Instant download
- Own it forever
- Available as EPUB and PDF
- Compact, lightweight edition
- Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
- Free shipping worldwide - see info
- Durable hardcover edition
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Institutional subscriptions
Similar content being viewed by others
The Dynamics of Inequality and Poverty Among Children in Colombia During the COVID-19 Recession
The fall in income inequality during COVID-19 in four European countries
COVID-19 and Impact on Income Inequality: The Indian Experience
See Mukhopadhyay and Chakraborty ( 2019 ) for details.
Ahmed, M., & Bhattacharya, N. (1972). Size distribution of per capita personal income in India: 1955–56, 1960–61 and 1963–64 . Economic and Political Weekly, Special Number. Reprinted in Krishnaswami, K. S. (Ed.). (1990). Poverty and income distribution . Oxford University Press for Sameeksha Trust.
Google Scholar
Beteille, A. (2012). India’s destiny not caste in stone, The Hindu , February 21, 2012. Available at: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/indias-destiny-not-caste-in-stone/article2913662.ece
Chakraborty, A., & Mukhopadhyay, S. (2020). Inter-group disparities in growing economies: India among the BRICS’. In B. P. Abraham, P. Ray, & S. Y. Kim (Eds.), BRICS: The quest for inclusive growth. The political economy of the BRICS countries (Vol. 1). World Scientific.
Chancel, L., & Piketty, T. (2019). Indian income inequality, 1922–2015: From British Raj to Billionaire Raj?’ The Review of Income and Wealth, 65 (S1), S33–S62.
Chancel, L., Piketty, T., Saez, E., & Zucman, G., et al. (2022). World inequality report 2022 . World Inequality Lab.
Datt, G., & Ravallion, M. (2010). Shining for the poor too? Economic and Political Weekly, 13 February.
Deininger, K., & Squire, L. (1996). A new data set measuring income inequality. The World Bank Economic Review, 10 (3), 565–591.
Dreze, J., & Sen, A. (2013). An uncertain glory: India and its contradictions . Allen Lane.
Book Google Scholar
Drèze, J., & Somanchi, A. (2021). View: New barometer of India’s economy fails to reflect deprivations of poor households. The Economic Times , June 21, 2021.
Mukhopadhya, S., & Chakraborty, A. (2019). Changing wealth inequalities in child nutrition in Indian states. Economic and Political Weekly, 55 (10).
O’Donnell, O., van Doorslaer, E., Wagstaff, A., & Lindelow, M. (2008). Analyzing health equity using household survey data: A guide to techniques and their implementation . The World Bank.
Oxfam India. (2021). The inequality virus: Davos India supplement . Oxfam India.
Oxfam India. (2022). India kills: India supplement 2022 . Oxfam India.
Panagariya, A., & More, V. (2013). Poverty by social, religious and economic groups in India and its large states: 1993–94 to 2011–12, Working Paper No. 2013–02, Columbia University, Program on Indian Economic Policies, USA.
Reddy, S. G., & Jayadev, A. (2011). Inequalities between groups: Theory and empirics, World Development, 39 (2), 159–173.
Sen, A. ([1973] 1997) On economic inequality (expanded edition). Oxford University Press.
Subramanian, S. (2000). What is happening to rural welfare, poverty, and inequality in India? Ideas for India , January 10, 2000.
Vanneman, R., & Dubey, A. (2014). Horizontal and vertical inequalities in India. In J. C. Gornick & M. Jantti (Eds.), Income inequality: Economic disparities and the middle class in affluent countries . Stanford University Press (Chapter 16).
World Bank. (2011). Perspectives on poverty in India: Stylised facts from survey data . World Bank.
Download references
Acknowledgements
Parts of the paper draw on my earlier work in collaboration with Simantini Mukhopadhyay. I am grateful to her for allowing me to use some of the material.
Author information
Authors and affiliations.
Institute of Development Studies Kolkata, Kolkata, India
Achin Chakraborty
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar
Corresponding author
Correspondence to Achin Chakraborty .
Editor information
Editors and affiliations.
Department of Economics, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India
Ajitava Raychaudhuri
Arpita Ghose
See Table 6 and Fig. 1 .
Top 10% and bottom 50% income share in India, 1900–2021
Rights and permissions
Reprints and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Chakraborty, A. (2023). Unequal Inequalities in India: Income and Non-income Dimensions. In: Raychaudhuri, A., Ghose, A. (eds) Managing Pandemic and Correcting Development Fundamentals. India Studies in Business and Economics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8680-2_13
Download citation
DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8680-2_13
Published : 01 June 2023
Publisher Name : Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN : 978-981-19-8679-6
Online ISBN : 978-981-19-8680-2
eBook Packages : Economics and Finance Economics and Finance (R0)
Share this chapter
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative
- Publish with us
Policies and ethics
- Find a journal
- Track your research
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
This document presents a case study on India's national income from 1975-2010. It summarizes key growth rates during this period, such as 9.5% in 1975-76 and 8.9% in 2010. It defines national income as the value of goods and services produced within a country during a year.
Abstract. We combine national income accounts, wealth aggregates, tax tabulations, rich lists, and surveys on income, consumption, and wealth in a consistent framework to present long run homogeneous series of income and wealth inequality in India.
Periodic estimates of national income available since mid-nineteenth century indicate that the per capita income virtually stagnated in India till independence when world income grew several fold due to
National Income And Related Aggregates . 3.1 Background : Performance of an economy depends on the amount of goods and services produced in that economy. In monetary terms its measure is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross National Income (GNI), and Net National Income (NNI). Apart from these macro-economic
National Income Case Study for class 12 economics - Free download as PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free.
PDF | On Jan 1, 2004, Sethi and others published Public Expenditure and National Income in India: An Investigation of Structural Changes and Causality | Find, read and cite all the research...
Economic Survey 2023-24 Statistical Appendix | 1 Table 1.1: Gross National Income and Net National Income Year Gross national income (` crore)Net national income
This study examines the impact of government spending behavior on the growth of national income and employment in India during thirty years covering from 1990 to 2019.
The most recent World Inequality Report 2022 finds that in India while the top 10% and top 1% hold, respectively, 57% and 22% of total national income, the share of bottom 50% has gone down to 13%.
This paper, based on the first two waves of the India Human Development survey data, addresses three questions namely; (a) examining recent trends and sources of income inequality and their ...