Heterogeneous Effect of the Indian Affirmative Action: The Role of Caste Certificates
研究发现印度近半数的表列种姓和表列部落家庭没有种姓证书，无法享受平权福利；拥有证书能显著提高获得政府工作、货币和非货币福祉的机会。
Affirmative action policies, around the world, aim to provide preferential treatment to those that belong to underprivileged communities and have experienced historical social injustices and exploitations. Contemporary studies that examine the effect of Indian affirmative action policies do not explicitly consider that all intended beneficiaries are not eligible for targeted benefits. An intended beneficiary is unable to acquire the targeted benefits without possessing a valid caste certificate issued by an appropriate authority. Yet, the 2011-12 IHDS, the only nationally representative survey collecting information on caste certificate possession among households, reveals that nearly half of the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) households do not possess caste certificates and thus cannot be considered eligible for benefits. In this paper, we first explore the factors that are associated with a household’s likelihood of caste certificate possession, observing that some factors are associated with increased likelihood while others are associated with reduced likelihood. We then examine the causal link between caste certificate possession and SC/ST households’ performance in three social indicators: government job procurement, monetary well-being and non-monetary multidimensional well-being. We observe that caste certificate possessions increase the likelihood of securing government jobs and enhance monetary and non-monetary well-being among SC/ST households.