Does Employment Quota Explain Occupational Choice Among Disadvantaged Groups? A Natural Experiment from India

Prakash, Nishith and Howard, Larry (2008): Does Employment Quota Explain Occupational Choice Among Disadvantaged Groups? A Natural Experiment from India.

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of a federally-mandated public sector employment quota policy for minorities on their occupational choice. We utilize multiple logit models to estimate the effect of the policy on the choice between a high, middle, or low-skill public sector occupation during the 1980s and 1990s. The main findings are, first, the policy has a significant effect on the choice of occupation for both groups. The policy increases the probability of the scheduled caste group choosing high-skill occupations and decreases the probability of choosing middle-skill occupations. In contrast, the policy decreases the probability of the scheduled tribe group choosing high-skill occupations and increases their probability of choosing low-skill occupations. Second, the influence of the policy is interrelated with an individual's years of schooling. Third, we find evidence of employment quota externalities in that a policy targeted at one group affects the occupational choice of the other group. Overall, the results suggest that federally-mandated employment quotas do change occupational choice for the target disadvantaged groups and contribute to their improved socio-economic standing.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Occupational choice, Skill, Caste, India
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers > J62 - Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O10 - General; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O2 - Development Planning and Policy; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers > J61 - Geographic Labor Mobility ; Immigrant Workers; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J24 - Human Capital ; Skills ; Occupational Choice ; Labor Productivity

References

Becker, G. S., May, 1962. Discrimination and the occupational progress of negroes: a comment. The Review of Economics and Statistics 44 (2), 214-215.

Boskin, M. J., Part I, M 1974. A conditional logit model of occupational choice. Journal of Political Economy 82 (2), 389-98.