Who is backward? Who is not? – II | Number Theory

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The first part of this series used three proxies for lack of economic affluence – MGNREGS or outdoor work, malnourishment among children, and college education for different generation of household members – and cross tabulated them with social groups to find a link between economic deprivation and caste. The second part of this series will do a similar exercise with proxies for economic affluence.

Representational image. (PTI)

Who is backward? Who is not? – II

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  Who is more likely to travel by air in India?

  An earlier analysis in these pages found that air travel was among the most unequally consumed goods and services in the official consumption expenditure data in India. Intuitively, this makes a lot of sense, as only the well-off are likely to travel by air. An HT analysis of 2023-24 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) data shows that a non-SC-ST-OBC household was 3.7 times and 1.6 times more likely than an SC or OBC household to have spent money on air travel. The gap between non-SC-ST-OBCs and others in share in spending on air travel – this could signify longer distances traveled or more air travel – adjusted for share in population is even larger. To be sure, the share of all households who reported air travel is just 0.05% in the HCES.
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  Who is more likely to own a car in India?

  Owning a vehicle, either for private use or commercial use, is another important indicator of economic affluence. Data from the 2019 All India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS) – the official source of household assets in India – shows that a non-SC-ST-OBC household was significantly more likely to own a private car than other social groups in India. Once again, the gap is larger vis-à-vis SC/STs than OBCs. To be sure non-SC-ST-OBC and OBC groups were almost at par in ownership of other kinds of vehicles such as two-wheelers and tractors etc. As far as OBCs are concerned, their relative share in ownership of different kinds of vehicles is lower than one only in the case of private cars. Relative share measures the ratio of the share of a social group in the total number of a particular vehicle and their share in overall population and values below one show under-representation compared to share in population. Relative shares are less than one for ownership of all kinds of vehicles including bicycles for STs; and above one only for rickshaws and bicycles for SCs.
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  Who is more likely to own an air-conditioner in India?

  As India gets warmer, owning an air-conditioner has become the proverbial ticket to comfort. Only a handful of households – 4.9% according to data from the Multiple Indicator Survey (MIS) conducted in 2020-21 – owned ACs in India. Owning an AC is expensive because it also has a significant running cost apart from the one-time investment in buying it. A social group-wise analysis of AC ownership shows a big social divide. A non-SC-ST-OBC household is 23 times more likely to own an AC than a ST household. These numbers are 9.2 and 3.5 for non-SC-ST-OBC households vis-à-vis SC and OBC households.
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  Who is more likely to send their children to private school?

  If there is one thing households in India overspend on, it is education of their children. Sending a child to private school instead of a government one is perhaps the most important aspirational spend parents make. This was seen clearly during the pandemic, when loss of income during the lockdown forced parents to withdraw their children from private schools and enroll them in government schools. NSSO data on social consumption shows a strong correlation between overall consumption levels of households and children going to private schools. A social-group wise classification of households who send their children to private schools shows that more than half of non-SC-ST-OBC households send their children to private schools. This number was almost 20%, 30% and 40% for ST, SC and OBC households.