Job Market Paper
Improving First-Generation College Students' Education and Employment Outcomes: Effect of a Targeted Scholarship Program (with Soham Sahoo)
Revise and Resubmit
We evaluate the First-Generation Graduate Scholarship scheme implemented in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which waives tuition fees for first-generation college students in technical education. Using household survey data in difference-in-differences (DiD) and synthetic DiD frameworks, we find substantial improvements in enrollment, stream choice, and graduation in technical courses, with downstream effects on regular employment, occupational choices, and household welfare. Male students gained more than female students. The scheme also increased reliance on education loans to cover residual costs. Our findings highlight how targeting intergenerational disadvantages through education policy can influence educational choices and produce positive labour market returns.
Working Papers
Safer Among Their Own? Everyday Discrimination and Mental Health Among Older Adults in Rural India (with Allen P Ugargol)
Revise and Resubmit
Structural hierarchies such as race and caste shape chronic stress burdens by reinforcing everyday forms of social exclusion. While a growing body of research links everyday discrimination to mental health outcomes, its spatial patterning and relevance to later life remain underexplored. This study investigates how caste-based social hierarchies and local demographic structures jointly shape experiences of everyday discrimination and depressive symptoms among older adults in rural India. Using nationally representative data from the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (2017–2019), we analyse multivariate and multilevel models accounting for individual, household, and village characteristics. We find that individuals from marginalised caste groups report significantly higher levels of everyday discrimination and depressive symptoms compared to upper-caste groups. However, residing in villages where one's own caste group forms the numerical majority substantially reduces these adverse outcomes. Further analysis suggests that experiences of discrimination are associated with elevated depressive symptoms, indicating a possible pathway linking caste and mental health. These findings highlight the importance of local social context in shaping the psychosocial well-being of ageing populations.
India Lives in Her Hamlets: Asymmetric Caste Segregation in Rural India (with Deepak Malghan)
Spatial inequality in state-provided public goods is well documented. Data from the universe of nearly 1.7 million Indian rural hamlets show how over 90% of the spatial variation in public goods placement is rooted in what we term "last-mile inequality"—the hyperlocal variation within individual village units. Using the first-of-its-kind granular hamlet-level caste-category demography, we uncover the political economy of how habitations dominated by Dalits (formerly "untouchable" caste groups) suffer the most significant public goods deficit. Our novel intra-village segregation political economy channel is robust and comes from models that use high-dimensional fixed effects to account for all plausible non-local variations.
Publications
A Micro-ethnographic Study on Provision and Access of Public Goods in an Indian Village
in Economic and Political Weekly
Using a micro-ethnographic approach with participatory tools such as transect walks, interviews, and resource mapping, this study uncovers how social norms, community needs, and the physical attributes of facilities intersect to shape patterns of access to public goods. Access is influenced not only by spatial location but also by cultural norms, perceived necessity, and design features that enable or restrict use. The analysis further highlights the dialectical interplay between formal state interventions and informal cultural practices, showing how these systems often reinforce, but sometimes disrupt, entrenched inequalities.
Work in Progress
Last-Mile Inequality in Public Goods (with Deepak Malghan)
"India lives in her villages" is among the most globally known demographic adages. The village is the elementary spatial demographic unit in administrative praxis and sociological inquiries centred on rural India. However, intra-village segregation of residential space is an integral component of India's caste-based agrarian social order. The modal Indian village contains several perfectly segregated hamlets that are spatialized caste units. The Indian state now collects demographic data at the hamlet level and targets public goods such as rural roads and drinking water at the hamlet rather than the village. We use the most comprehensive census-scale administrative data on hamlet caste composition from every district in India (approx. 1.7 million hamlets) to develop the first-ever nationwide portrait of intra-village caste segregation. We document significant asymmetries between how Dalits and "upper" caste residents experience segregation. Our analysis shows that, on average, Dalits (formerly "untouchable" caste groups) live in more diverse villages than "touchable" groups. We uncover how the marginalisation and stigmatisation of Dalit groups are related to intra-village rather than inter-village segregation. Our results force a rethink of India's elementary spatial unit of analysis and show how "India lives in her [caste] hamlets" rather than in her villages.