r.i.c.e.

rice @ PAA (2022)

Wed, 06 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT

r.i.c.e. will be at PAA 2022 in Atlanta. We are looking forward to seeing you! For a list of panels in which r.i.c.e. researchers are presenting, see this document.

Social disadvantage, economic inequality, and life expectancy in nine Indian states

Tue, 04 May 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Sangita Vyas, Payal Hathi, Aashish Gupta

Working Paper

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Abstract:

An extensive literature documents the contributions of discrimination and social exclusion to health disparities. This study investigates life expectancy differentials along lines of caste, religion, and indigenous identity in India, home to some of the largest populations of marginalized social groups in the world.

Using a large, high-quality survey that measured mortality, social group, and economic status, we are the first to estimate and decompose life expectancy differences between higher-caste Hindus and three of India's most disadvantaged social groups: Adivasis, Dalits, and Muslims. Relative to higher-caste Hindus, Adivasi life expectancy is more than four years lower, Dalit life expectancy is more than three years lower, and Muslim life expectancy is about one year lower. Economic status explains less than half of these gaps.

The differences between the life expectancy of higher-caste Hindus and the life expectancies of Adivasis and Dalits are comparable to the Black-White gap in the US in absolute magnitude. The differences are larger in relative terms because overall life expectancy in India is lower. Our findings extend the literature on fundamental causes of global health disparities. Methodologically, we contribute to the literature on mortality estimation and demographic decomposition using survey data from low- and middle-income contexts.

EPW published a review of Dean's book 'Air'

Sat, 17 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

The Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) recently published a review of Dean’s new book “Air: Pollution, Climate Change and India’s Choice Between Policy and Pretence”. The review was published in the edition dated April 17th 2021 and was written by Santosh Harish. The author is a researcher in energy and environment policy and currently works as a Fellow with the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. The author describes the book as one “that manages to be both accessible and engaging to the uninitiated, while offering new perspectives and arguments for the converted.”

Some excerpts from the review can be found below.

“Two themes surface repeatedly in this book. First, Spears argues that the notion of a tradeoff between development and environment is vastly overstated, and especially when we consider the impacts of pollution exposure on early childhood development, the two converge. Second,he discusses how governments often engage in the pretence of appearing to be serious about environment, while doing little in practice to make substantive progress. Both these themes have important implications on sustaining progress on environmental outcomes in the coming years.”

“Environmental policy is often characterised by symbolic measures and grand declarations that are not followed up in practice. As the book points out, policy pretence is not restricted to the environment, but welfare outcomes in other spheres often improve despite the government, given the larger global advances in technology and commerce. Unfortunately, there is no real substitute for the state in regulating against polluting activities. Since environmental degradation is an externality of economic activities, “environment policy requires navigating the ship of state against the current, not with it”.”

“The book draws extensively from the environmental economics literature, and especially the author’s own body of work with his collaborators. As a result, the book also provides a peek into quasi-experimental methods to investigate the effects of pollution on health. This could be especially valuable for researchers and government officials approaching air pollution from other vantage points. Notably, most of the research cited here is based in India.”

“One crucial difference between India and other countries that have had to deal with air pollution is its much weaker state capacity. Or as the author puts it, “India is tasked with regulating pollu- tion on a 21st century scale with a 19th century regulatory state”. “

You can read the full review of the book here!

Understanding high mortality among private facility births in rural Uttar Pradesh

Mon, 05 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Nikhil Srivastav, Lovey Pant, Aditi Priya, Diane Coffey

Working Paper

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Abstract:

In the last 15 years, there has been a large increase in facility births and a large decline in home births across India. In Uttar Pradesh (UP), increases in facility birth have led to puzzlingly little decline in neonatal mortality.

This paper investigates the role of private facilities in providing care at birth to rural residents of UP. At least one in five births to rural UP residents takes place in a private facility. These births experience a stunningly high neonatal mortality rate of 65 deaths per 1000, compared to 40 among births in public facilities, and 47 among home births.

This research seeks to understand why mortality rates are higher in private facilities than public facilities. We document some selection of complicated cases into private facilities; some reasons for this are public employees’ risk avoidance, referral commissions and staffing shortages.

Yet selection is not the only reason for the private-public mortality gap: We document abysmally poor quality of care in private facilities. Private providers serving rural residents are largely untrained and unregulated. They have financial incentives to over-intervene in birth, which patients support because they conflate intervention with care. Despite the inadequacy of care in public facilities, public facilities are nevertheless safer for rural babies.

We recommend that governments increase financial incentives to families and ASHAs for public facility births and that civil society groups warn rural families about the dangers of giving birth in private facilities.

Using mobile phone surveys to measure levels, trends, and disparities in mental health

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT

This Policy Brief summarizes and presents policy recommendations based on research in “Measurement of population mental health: Evidence from mobile phone survey in India,” a research paper by Diane Coffey, Payal Hathi, Nazar Khalid and Amit Thorat.

This brief draws on Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI), a mobile phone survey that interviews adults aged 18 to 65. In Bihar, Jharkhand, & Maharashtra, SARI measured respondents’ mental health using two different sets of questions. This is the first time a survey has measured population mental health in India with a phone survey.

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Discrimination and women's mental health

Thu, 27 Aug 2020 00:00:00 GMT

This Policy Brief presents recommendations based on research in “When women eat last: Discrimination at home and women’s mental health” a paper by Payal Hathi, Diane Coffey, Amit Thorat , and Nazar Khalid.

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Notes from the Webinar on 'Gender and Mental Health in Bihar and India: Developing tools for effective measurement'

Mon, 27 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

r.i.c.e, in collaboration with the International Growth Centre (IGC), organised a webinar titled "Gender and Mental Health in Bihar and India: Developing tools for effective measurement". The webinar covered recent research on mental health along various dimensions, including the measurement of mental health through the use of phone surveys, the prevalence of poor mental health among marginalized groups, mental distress due to discrimination and exclusion in higher education, and the mental health consequences of gender discrimination in the home.

Here is the list of topics covered, links to speakers' presentation and papers for those interested in exploring the issue.

Diane Coffey: Diane’s presentation was titled “Measurement of population mental health: Evidence from a mobile phone survey”. She discussed the feasibility of measuring mental health in population-based mobile phone surveys and which questions are best suited to the phone survey medium. Slides from her presentation can be accessed here. You can read the full paper here.

Aashish Gupta: Aashish’s presentation was titled “Caste, religion, and mental health in India”. His research presents population-level evidence that Dalits and Muslims have worse mental health in India. His findings point towards the need for stronger stances against discrimination and violence. Slides from the presentation can be accessed here. Read the full paper here.

Payal Hathi: Payal’s presentation was titled “When women eat last: Discrimination at home and women’s mental health”. Her research finds that gender discrimination in the form of women eating after men is correlated with worse mental health. She shows that while autonomy may mediate the relationship between gender discrimination and mental health, some measures of autonomy may be better able to capture this. Slides from her presentation can be accessed here. Read the full paper here.

Amit Thorat: Amit’s presentation was titled “Discrimination and stress in higher education in India”. His research talks about how identity and stigmatization play out in higher education in India. Slides from his presentation can be found here.

Bhargavi Davar: Bhargavi’s presentation was titled “Gender and Policy: Mental Health Policy or Development Policy?”. She addressed the need for shifting of policy gestalts from the “medical model” to “social model” and her reflections on how that shift can be brought about. Slides from her presentation can be found here. Read more about her work here.

Amita Dhanada: Amita shared her views on the National Mental Health Act- its inadequacies and how those can be resolved. Read more about her work here

Read more about r.i.c.e's research on mental health:

-Using mobile phone surveys to measure levels, trends, and disparities in mental health (Working Paper, Policy Brief)

-When women eat last: Discrimination at home and women's mental health (Working paper, Policy Brief)

Developing tools for the effective measurement of Mental Health

Mon, 29 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Measurement of population mental health is uncommon in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In the face of high mortality rates and widespread infectious disease in LMICs, it is not unreasonable for governments and researchers to prioritize measuring physical health. The high cost of face-to-face data collection is another reason that mental health often goes unmeasured.

However, as data becomes increasingly less costly to collect, there are emerging opportunities to measure, understand, and address poor mental health in LMICs. In particular, the project of measuring population mental health may be facilitated by the use of mobile phone surveys, which are less costly than face-to-face surveys.

The Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI) is a mobile phone based survey that tests the performance of two different questionnaires to measure mental health over the phone. Read more about our findings here

Further, we draw on data from SARI and the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) to understand how poor mental health correlates with discrimination against women. Read more about our findings here

r.i.c.e. is organizing a webinar titled 'Gender and mental health in Bihar and India: Developing tools for effective measurement' on July 10th, 2020 (IST) / July 9th, 2020 (US Pacific). Register for the webinar here

Check out Lovey's photo essay on Barriers to Clean Fuel Use published in EPW!

Sat, 20 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

The Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojna reportedly provided 80 million households in India with LPG connection by the end of 2019. However, recent studies have found that access to LPG cylinder hasn’t led to a proportionate increase in the LPG use among rural households. What prevents households to use LPG, which is easier to cook on and has significant health benefits?

Lovey vividly demonstrates the many barriers to clean fuel use through a series of photos captured during her fieldwork in Uttar Pradesh. Take a look at her photo essay published recently in the Economic and Political Weekly!

Explicit Prejudice: Evidence from a New Survey

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Diane Coffey, Payal Hathi, Nidhi Khurana, Amit Thorat

Published in: Economic & Political Weekly

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Abstract:

This paper uses data from the newly done phone survey by r.i.c.e. called Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI). It studies explicit prejudice against women and Dalits in Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. We find high levels of explicit prejudice against both Dalits and women in all the places where our phone survey has been conducted so far. The paper also discusses the need for more active public discourse to challenge the practices of caste and gender based discrimination in India.

Mobile phone survey methods for measuring social discrimination!

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Payal Hathi, Nazar Khalid, Nidhi Khurana, Amit Thorat, Diane Coffey

Published in: Institutions Grantee Report

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Abstract:

The Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI) project is among the first to study prejudice and discrimination in India using a low-cost mobile phone survey. We collect representative data on explicit prejudice and discrimination against women, Dalits, and Muslims. We also measure public attitudes about social policies.

In collaboration with the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), r.i.c.e has come out with a report that explores the promise of using mobile phone surveys to conduct research on social attitudes in India.

Our experience suggests that they are a valuable tool for measuring social attitudes and social progress.These uncomfortable but important problems are not discussed deeply enough today, as many people assume that economic progress will automatically bring social progress. Accurately measuring the extent of the problem may open up space for more frank discussions about social inequality in India, and the need for social policies to address it.

Experiences and Perceptions of Discrimination among Dalits and Muslims

Sun, 14 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Payal Hathi, Diane Coffey, Nazar Khalid, Nidhi Khurana, Amit Thorat

Published in: Economic & Political Weekly

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Abstract:

Through the use of new survey data, the experiences and perceptions of discrimination among Dalits and Muslims have been quantified. One important result is that many respondents report experiencing discrimination at school and in interactions with government officials. These results are even more worrisome when we consider that self-reports of discrimination perhaps underestimate the true extent of the problem.

When women eat last: Discrimination at home and women’s mental health

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Payal Hathi, Diane Coffey, Amit Thorat, Nazar Khalid

Published in:PloS one

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Abstract:

Women and girls in India face many forms of discrimination throughout the life course. Gender inequality has important consequences for women themselves, and also for their families and communities.

The 2011 India Human Development Survey found that in about a quarter of Indian households, women are expected to have their meals after men have finished eating. This study investigates whether this form of gender discrimination is associated with worse mental health outcomes for women. Our primary data source is a new, state-representative mobile phone survey of women ages 18-65 in Bihar, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra in 2018. We measure mental health using questions from the World Health Organization’s Self-Reporting Questionnaire.

We find that, for women in these states, eating last is correlated with worse mental health, even after accounting for differences in socioeconomic status. We discuss two possible mechanisms for this relationship: eating last may be associated with worse mental health because it is associated with worse physical health, or eating last may be associated with poor mental health because it is associated with less autonomy, or both.

Accountability Initiative's and r.i.c.e.'s paper got published in EPW!

Fri, 29 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Since October 2014, the Government of India has worked towards the goal of eliminating open defecation by 2019 through the Swachh Bharat Mission. In June 2014, the results of a survey of rural sanitation behaviour in North India were first reported. The results from a late 2018 survey that revisited households from the 2014 survey in four states—Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh—are presented. Although rural latrine ownership increased considerably over this period, open defecation remains very common in these four states. There is substantial heterogeneity across states in what the SBM did and how. These outcomes suggest the need for a transparent, fact-based public dialogue about the SBM, its costs and benefits, and its accomplishments and means.

Get the paper here!

EPW published Payal and Nikhil's paper on Caste Prejudice & Infection!

Fri, 29 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

In light of India’s continuing efforts to reduce maternal mortality, why government hospitals continue to be dangerously unhygienic, posing serious infection risks to patients, is explored. Through interviews and observations at public hospitals in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh, we find that unhygienic practices and behaviours by health staff abound, leading to an environment with high potential for infection. Deep caste prejudice against cleaners prevents the professionalisation of their work, leaving them overburdened and under-equipped to maintain standards of hygiene. Casteist notions of cleanliness also weaken rigorous implementation of infection control measures by hospital staff. Rather than addressing these deeper issues, antibiotics are routinely prescribed as a shortcut to deal with the risk of hospital infection.

You can get the paper here!

Prof. Amit Thorat, who is also a r.i.c.e. affiliate, interviewed for EPW's podcast show

Fri, 29 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Prof Amit Thorat, who teaches at JNU and is also a visiting researcher at r.i.c.e., with his colleague Dr. Omkar Joshi, who is a doctoral scholar at the University of Maryland, was interviewed for the Economic and Political Weekly’s podcast show Research Radio. In the show, Prof Thorat and Dr Joshi talk about social groups in India that have a higher proportion of individuals who practice untouchability. To learn more about caste and the discriminatory practice of untouchability in India, and about the methods these researchers used to understand it, you can listen to the show here.

Protecting health workers: Protective gear is not enough, infection control practices are critical | Payal Hathi and Nikhil Srivastav | The Times of India

Fri, 29 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

At the end of the PM’s announcement of India’s countrywide lockdown last month, he reminded us of the importance of health workers as we cope with the rapid spread of Covid-19, and announced a Rs 15,000 crore allocation for health system strengthening. The critical question is, how should this allocation be prioritised to minimise the cost to society of this current crisis and to best support health workers? Read more...

Accountability Initiative's and r.i.c.e.'s paper published in EPW!

Fri, 29 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Get the paper here!

Caste prejudice and infection: why a dangerous lack of hygiene persists in government hospitals

Fri, 29 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Payal Hathi, Nikhil Srivastav

Published in: Tenures of Supreme Court Judges

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Abstract:

In light of India’s continuing efforts to reduce maternal mortality and make childbirth safer for women, this article explores why government hospitals continue to be dangerously unhygienic, posing serious risk of infection to patients in maternity wards and labor rooms.

Through interviews with cleaners and other health staff, and observations at district level hospitals and PHC/CHCs in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh, we find that unhygienic practices and behaviors by health staff abound, leading to an environment with high potential for infection. Deep caste prejudice against cleaners, who continue to come from marginalized Dalit communities, prevents the professionalization of their work. This, in turn, leads to a lack of hygiene as casteist notions of what is clean and unclean influence the way that infection is understood and infection control is implemented.

The discrimination cleaners face means that they are the least trained and least supported hospital staff, overburdened and underequipped to maintain the high standards of hygiene required to promote patient wellbeing. Rather than addressing these deeper issues, antibiotics are routinely prescribed as a shortcut to dealing with the risk of hospital infection, potentially contributing to increases in antibiotic resistance in the long run.

Disrespectful Maternity Care: Labor Room Violence in Government Health Facilities in India

Fri, 29 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Lovey Pant, Kanika Sharma, Nazar Khalid, and Nikhil Srivastav

Working paper

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Abstract: The government of India (GOI) endeavors to enhance the satisfaction of beneficiaries by ensuring ‘Respectful Maternity Care’ (RMC) at public health facilities, however, through observations in public hospitals in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, we document widespread mistreatment of pregnant women and extensive labor room violence.

We also observed that women were often humiliated for their fertility choices and had intrauterine devices (IUDs) inserted without their full knowledge and consent. A target driven approach towards population control, staff’s burn-out from too many patients and long shifts, the lack of knowledge among staff on how to deal with the legitimate stress of a life and death situation, and a highly unequal society where it is socially acceptable to victimize low-ranking people, often leads to violence and abuse of pregnant women in delivery rooms.

Revisiting Open Defecation: Evidence from a Panel Survey in Rural North India, 2014–18

Fri, 29 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Aashish Gupta, Nazar Khalid, Devashish Desphande, Payal Hathi, Avani Kapur, Nikhil Srivastav, Sangita Vyas, Dean Spears, Diane Coffey

Published in: Economic and Political Weekly

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Abstract:

Although rural latrine ownership increased considerably over this period, open defecation remains very common in these four states. There is substantial heterogeneity across states in what the SBM did and how. These outcomes suggest the need for a transparent, fact-based public dialogue about the SBM, its costs and benefits, and its accomplishments and means.

Nikhil's book review of `The Right to Sanitation in India: Critical Perspectives' in the EPW

Fri, 06 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Don't miss a review of `The right to sanitation in India: Critical perspectives', edited by Philippe Cullet, Sujith Koonan, and Lovleen Bhullar, in this week's Economic and Political Weekly. The review is available online here.

The Child Health Impacts of Coal: Evidence from India’s Coal expansion | Sangita Vyas | Ideas for India

Thu, 05 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

In recent years, electricity generation from coal has rapidly increased in India. Sangita Vyas, r.i.c.e. Research Fellow, explores the consequences of India’s large and ongoing coal plant expansion on child health and human capital. It finds that children who are born exposed to a median-sized coal plant are shorter than those who are born with no coal plant exposure. Supporting air pollution as a channel, effects are larger among children living closer to coal plants. Read more...

What Do Decades of Experience with Listing Exercises Tell Us About the Prospects of Compiling a Nationwide NRC? | Nikhil Srivastav | The Times of India

Wed, 19 Feb 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Some Indians, including some in the government, now believe that a registry of citizens should exist and should be used to govern. How capable is the Indian state at drawing up accurate lists? In this article, R.I.C.E. Research Fellow, Nikhil Srivastav, reviews evidence of previous government efforts to create lists of certain population groups and draws some important conclusions. Read more...

EPW published r.i.c.e. paper on fuel use in rural north India!

Sun, 19 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Survey evidence from rural North India showing persistent solid fuel use despite increases in liquefied petroleum gas ownership is presented. Although three-quarters of survey households in these states had LPG, almost all also had a stove that uses solid fuels. Among those owning both, almost three-quarters used solid fuels the day before the survey. Household economic status, relative costs of cooking fuels, gender inequality, and beliefs about solid fuels were important contributors to high solid fuel use. To realise the full health benefits of the LPG expansion, attention must now be turned towards encouraging exclusive LPG use.

Get the paper here!

Persistence of solid fuel use in rural north India (published paper)

Sun, 19 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Aashish Gupta, Sangita Vyas, Payal Hathi, Nazar Khalid, Nikhil Srivastav, Dean Spears, Diane Coffey

Published in: Economic & Political Weekly

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Abstract:

Among those owning both, almost three-quarters used solid fuels the day before the survey. Household economic status, relative costs of cooking fuels, gender inequality, and beliefs about solid fuels were important contributors to high solid fuel use. To realise the full health benefits of the LPG expansion, attention must now be turned towards encouraging exclusive LPG use.

Best Non-Fiction Books of the Decade | The Hindu

Sat, 04 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT

The last decade saw a profusion of writing on science and nature, environment and climate change, medicine and sport. As the last decade was ending, The Hindu took a look at what it considers the top 10 non-fiction books, written in the last ten years. Included on the list is Diane Coffey and Dean Spears' 2017 book, Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste. Read more...

Where India Goes named among best non-fiction books of the decade by The Hindu

Thu, 02 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Diane and Dean's book Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste has been named among the best non-fiction books the decade by The Hindu.

Reviewing for The Hindu, Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta observes, "This is a deeply researched and thoughtfully written book about open defecation, the role of caste, and the challenges of implementing policy interventions at this scale. Beyond these questions, it also reflects on the difficult road of development beyond conference platitudes and technocratic solutions. It points to the need for better exchanges between policymakers, development professionals and researchers if we are to reflect and act on some of the important questions of our times: Can economic development ever be sufficient without a focus on human development as well? Are there better ways to spur development among less served sections of the world’s population? With all the constraints, how can we do better for our poorer populations?"

This book is available on amazon and flipkart

Assessing public awareness and use of medical abortion via mobile phone survey in India

Tue, 12 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Kathleen Broussard, Payal Hathi, Diane Coffey

Published in: Contraception

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Abstract:

Objective: We assess the feasibility of measuring awareness and use of medical abortion via a mobile phone survey on social attitudes in India. Study design: In 2018, we conducted a mobile phone survey with 3455 married men and women in Bihar and Maharashtra, two of India’s most populous states. As part of a broader survey on social inequality, welfare programs, and health, we asked respondents about their awareness of medical abortion and whether they (or their wife) had ever had a medical abortion.

Results: Among men and women in Bihar and Maharashtra, one fifth to one third of respondents said that they had heard of medical abortion. In Bihar, men were more likely than women to report having heard of pills that can be used to end a pregnancy. Awareness of medical abortion was positively associated with education and with women’s status within the household. Consistent with results from representative face-to-face surveys, reported use of abortion medications was low.

Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that respondents are willing to answer abortion-related questions via mobile phone survey and reveal differences in reported awareness of medical abortion according to the region, sex, education, and household status. Implications: Inclusion of abortion-related questions in a large-scale, social attitudes phone survey is a feasible option for assessing public awareness of medical abortion in India.

Cooking With Gas, Not Wood | Sangita Vyas and Aashish Gupta | The Hindu

Mon, 14 Oct 2019 00:00:00 GMT

This article by r.i.c.e. researchers Sangita Vyas and Aashish Gupta addresses some popular myths around the use of traditional chulha (earthen/brick stove) and why there is a reluctance to switch over to LPG stoves. This reluctance is observed even when LPG stove protects from several harmful health impacts caused by cooking on traditional chulha using solid fuels.Based on the findings from a survey of 127 villages across four states-Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, this article highlights a number of policy steps which can provide right incentives and also nudge people’s behaviour in favour of clean fuel use. Read more...

Review: Air-Pollution, Climate Change and India’s Choice Between Policy and Pretence by Dean Spears | Sudhirendar Sharma | Hindustan Times

Mon, 14 Oct 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Ignorance and denial has transformed the problem of air pollution in India from a meek cat into an assertive tiger.In this review of Air-Pollution, Climate Change and India's Choice Between Policy and Pretence, by RICE Co-Executive Director Dean Spears, author Sudhirendar Sharma states, "Dean Spears confronts this tiger head-on in his socio-anthropological analysis of air pollution as it registers its presence in the country’s sprawling urban jungles and degrading rural landscapes." Read more...

Measuring open defecation in India using survey questions: evidence from a randomized survey experiment published in BMJ Open

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 00:00:00 GMT

BMJ Open published "Measuring open defecation in India using survey questions: evidence from a randomized survey experiment" co-authored by Sangita, Nikhil, Dean and Diane (with Divya Mary, Neeta Goel, Sujatha Srinivasan, Ajaykumar Tannirkulam and Radu Ban).

Reducing open defecation in India is essential to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, and exposure to open defecation has consequences for child mortality and development, it is essential to accurately monitor its progress.

Open Defecation is an individual behaviour, consequently, an individual-level survey question may be able to more accurately measure it compared with a household-level question, particularly among households with latrines. This study presents results from an experimental investigation of this hypothesis in rural India. The objective of the experiment was to investigate whether a balanced question about latrine use or open defecation for every member of a household finds different levels of open defecation compared with a household-level question.

The study shows that reported open defecation among all households is 20-21 percentage points higher in individual-level questions compared to the house-hold level questions. Moreover, among households that received assistance to construct latrines, reported open defecation is 28-29 percentage points higher. Thus, individual-level questions measure open defecation more accurately than household-level questions.

r.i.c.e congratulates Nikhil and Sangita for working very hard on this project! Read the entire article here.

More People in Rural India Defecate in Open Than What Govt’s Household Survey Shows: Study | Sangita Vyas | The Print

Tue, 08 Oct 2019 00:00:00 GMT

India's Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) that asks household-level questions greatly underestimates open defecation among households with latrines. In this article by Sangita Vyas, Reseach Fellow at RICE, the author lays out the research methods and results set forth in a study co-authored by RICE that disputes DHS findings. Read more...

Tolerance and Prejudice Co-exist in Hindus Self-Reported Attitudes towards Muslims

Sun, 29 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT

This article studies the self-reported attitudes of tolerance and prejudice among Hindus towards Muslims. We characterize and quantify the range of prejudices and discrimination that Muslims face using population-representative mobile survey data from Bihar, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra.

Our findings indicate that while there may be more everyday tolerance and acceptance between Hindus and Muslims than media reports suggest, there also exists a widespread prejudice and discrimination. We discuss the consequences of such social attitudes and make a case for addressing prejudicial attitudes towards Muslims.

We hope that other researchers will use the low-cost phone survey methods that we describe to examine these and related questions on how discrimination affects marginalization and how it varies across different states based on political and socio-economic factors.

Measuring open defecation in India using survey questions: Evidence from a randomized survey experiment

Sat, 28 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Sangita Vyas, Nikhil Srivastav, Divya Mary, Neeta Goel, Sujatha Srinivasan, Ajaykumar Tannirkulam, Radu Ban, Dean Spears, Diane Coffey

Published in: BMJ Open

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Abstract:

Objectives: To investigate differences in reported open defecation between a question about latrine use or open defecation for every household member and a household-level question.

Setting: Rural India is home to most of the world’s open defecation. India’s Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2015-2016 estimates that 54% of households in rural India defecate in the open. This measure is based on a question asking about the behavior of all household members in one question. Yet, studies in rural India find substantial open defecation among individuals living in households with latrines, suggesting that household-level questions underestimate true open defecation.

Participants: In 2018, we randomly assigned latrine-owning households in rural parts of four Indian states to receive one of two survey modules measuring sanitation behavior. 1,215 households were asked about latrine use or open defecation individually for every household member. 1,216 households were asked the household-level question used in India’s DHS: what type of facility do members of the household usually use?

Results: We compare reported open defecation between households asked the individual-level questions and those asked the household-level question. Using two methods for comparing open defecation by question type, the individual-level question found 20 to 21 (95% CI 16 to 25 for both estimates) percentage points more open defecation than the household-level question, among all households, and 28 to 29 (95% CI 22 to 35 for both estimates) percentage points more open defecation among households that received assistance to construct their latrines.

Conclusions: We provide the first evidence that individual-level questions find more open defecation than household-level questions. Because reducing open defecation in India is essential to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, and exposure to open defecation has consequences for child mortality and development, it is essential to accurately monitor its progress.

Alex Tabarrok reviews AIR: Pollution, Climate Change and India’s Choice Between Policy and Pretense

Thu, 19 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Alex Tabarrok, a professor of economics at the George Mason University, recently reviewed Dean’s latest book Air: Pollution, Climate Change and India's Choice Between Policy and Pretence on his blog Marginal Revolution. He lauds Dean’s efforts in ‘accurately explain academic work’ in a manner which can be understood by everyone, and that by combing the core ideas with ‘on-the-ground reporting’ has rendered this book ‘both informative and full of human interest.’ An excerpt from the review:

“One of the things I like about Air is that it is clear that pollution in India is both a market failure and a government failure. The government has been slow to respond to pollution because much of the public remains unaware of pollution’s true cost and much of the true cost is born by children and future people who have no vote. In the meantime, the government enhances rational ignorance by refusing to fund even the most basic equipment to measure where and when pollution ebbs and flows. Instead the government engages in virtue-politics by banning plastic bags and creating odd-even restrictions on driving in Delhi. These activities are pointless, even counter-productive, but they are well publicized and the appearance of doing something matters more than reality.”

You can order the book on Amazon or Flipkart

Status check: Swachh Bharat Mission to complete 5 years on October 2 | Rukmini S | Economic Times

Sun, 15 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT

On October 2, 2014, Prime Minister Modi gave a clarion call to make India open defecation free by the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Now that Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary is approaching, Rukmini S explores how far has rural and urban India come in increasing the toilet coverage and in getting people to use latrines.

She cites r.i.c.e.’s 2019 sanitation study to say, “Fewer people defecate in the open but having a toilet and still defecating in the open was widespread.” Read More...

Dean's new book 'AIR' reviewed in Hindustan Times

Tue, 10 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Hindustan Times recently published a review of Dean's new book AIR: Pollution, Climate Change and India's Choice Between Policy and Pretense by Sudhirendar Sharma. Some excerpts from the review:

"Air provides a nuanced understanding on air pollution and the country’s deep vulnerability to it in an era of impending climate change. Since policymakers have not invested in monitoring pollution and experts have not developed tools to curb it, this book is directed at enlightened voters who are concerned about the health of our society."

"Through carefully curated data, Spears provides evidence on how exposure to air pollution not only results in babies born with low height but also, shockingly, leads to higher infant mortality rates. While life expectancy has caught up with the developed world, India continues to have one-quarter of the world’s neonatal deaths."

"Politics is a difficult way to improve policies, the book asserts, but independent citizens can contribute to democratic accountability by influencing politics. Air pollution is too important to ignore and informed citizens need to track it and influence the state to act for the greater good."

Read the entire review of AIR here

Another Book Review of Air

Mon, 09 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Dr Sudhirendra Sharma reviews, Dean’s second book, Air: Pollution, Climate Change and India’s Choice Between Policy and Pretense in the Hindustan Times. “Air provides a nuanced understanding on air pollution and the country’s deep vulnerability to it in an era of impending climate change. Since policymakers have not invested in monitoring pollution and experts have not developed tools to curb it, this book is directed at enlightened voters who are concerned about the health of our society", says Dr. Sharma.

You can read the whole review here.

Also, in case you want to a copy, you can get it here.

"Cooking with gas, not wood." Read Sangita and Aashish's piece in The Hindu

Wed, 28 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Sangita and Aashish's article addresses some popular myths around the use of traditional chulha (earthen/brick stove) and why there is a reluctance to switch over to LPG stoves. This reluctance is observed even when LPG stove protects from several harmful health impacts caused by cooking on traditional chulha using solid fuels.

Based on the findings from a survey of 127 villages across four states-Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, this article highlights a number of policy steps which can provide right incentives and also nudge people's behaviour in favour of clean fuel use. Broadly, these fall under the following three strategies:

-communicating the harms of solid fuels and the benefits of cleaner fuels

-reducing the cost of LPG cylinder refills in rural areas

- promoting gender equality within households, particularly in cooking and related tasks.

Read the article here

Aashish's research on solid fuel use, gender, and adult respiratory health published in Population & Environment

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Population and Environment recently published Aashish's new research titled "Where there is smoke: Solid Fuel externalities, gender, and adult respiratory health in India." This paper studies the determination of respiratory health in India using data on lung obstruction from the WHO Survey of Global Ageing and Adult Health (WHO-SAGE 2007–2008). The main findings of the study are:

- Smokers and members of households that use solid fuels (wood, biomass, coal, or dung) for cooking have a higher lung obstruction.

- Even if a respondent's household uses clean fuels, their lung obstruction is higher if their neighbor's use solid fuels.

- The influence of determinants is patterned by gender

Promoting latrine use for Swachh Bharat

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Ambassador Hotel For the past three years, r.i.c.e. has been collaborating with 3ie on supporting projects that are testing different strategies for promoting the use of simple pit latrines in rural India. The four research teams from the Promoting Latrine Use in Rural India Project were presented at this event. You can read the teams' reports here: Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Odisha.

Promoting the use of simple pit latrines in rural India: Findings from Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka and Odisha

Wed, 21 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

For the past three years, r.i.c.e. has been collaborating with 3ie on supporting projects that are testing different strategies for promoting the use of simple pit latrines in rural India. Four teams, comprised of researchers and implementation agencies, came up with different interventions to promote latrine use in rural India, and tested them in four states. Many of these interventions specifically addressed fears surrounding pit emptying that are rooted in ideas of purity and untouchability. There were engaging demonstrations on showing how long it takes for a soak pit to fill and that decomposed sludge looks and feels just like other kinds of fertilizer. They randomly assigned the interventions to be done in some villages and not others. The findings of these studies are now out. You can read the teams' reports here: Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Odisha.

Some important lessons we learned from these projects include:

- Research shaped around informing policy is challenging, and difficult to do usefully! These projects got started at a time when the SBM became very active in villages throughout India. What this means is that reported open defecation decreased substantially in many of the study areas, in both places that were randomly assigned to get interventions and those that weren't. We don't know whether the reported declines after the SBM reflect real behavior change or whether people simply reported less open defecation because the government had been discouraging it. But, they make it difficult to understand how well the interventions themselves worked.

- It is very difficult to change deeply rooted beliefs around purity and untouchability. The Bihar team implemented several demonstrations to educate on pit emptying, and how it is ok for someone in the household to do it. However, in the follow-up survey, most households still reported that pit emptying was "inconvenient," and they would hire someone else to empty a decomposed pit. These beliefs are unlikely to be changed just by informational campaigns targeted at pit emptying, and may require broader change in beliefs around purity and untouchability.

- We learned a lot about measuring latrine use! A survey experiment found higher rates of reported open defecation from an individual-level question that asks about open defecation or latrine use for every household member, compared to a household-level question that asks about the behavior of everyone in the household in one question. The Gujarat team also developed another tool for measuring latrine use: a physical activity questionnaire that asked how many minutes a person walked to defecate in the fields, among a series of other physical activity questions. This tool was designed to try to hide the open defecation question, to try to minimize social desirability bias. It found slightly less open defecation than the individual questionnaire. See their report for more on this.

Where there is smoke: Solid fuel externalities, gender, and adult respiratory health in India

Tue, 20 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Author: Aashish Gupta

Published in: Population and Environment

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Abstract:

Chronic respiratory conditions are a leading cause of death in the world. Using data on lung obstruction from the WHO Survey of Global AGEing and Adult Health (WHO-SAGE 2007-08), this paper studies the determinants of respiratory health in India, home to a third of all deaths from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

First, we find that smokers and members of households that use solid fuels (wood, biomass, coal or dung) for cooking have higher lung obstruction.

Second, even if a respondent's household uses clean fuels, their lung obstruction is higher if their neighbors use solid fuels. In neighborhoods with high solid fuel use, the lungs of members of households that use clean fuels can be as obstructed as lungs of members of households that use solid fuels. These negative externalities of solid fuel use are robust to additional controls for neighborhood socioeconomic status, falsification tests, tests with placebo measures, and tests using alternative measures of respiratory health as outcomes.

Third, the influence of the determinants is patterned by gender. Smoking tobacco is an important influence on lung obstruction among men. Confirming non-linear dose-response relationships, we find that women from households that use solid fuels are the only group not further harmed by neighborhood solid fuel smoke, possibly because of high exposure to pollutants while cooking.

The study improves our understanding of behavioral, social, and environmental determinants of respiratory health in India. Importantly, it makes a case for greater public investments to promote the adoption and use of cleaner fuels.

Mortality and Death Registration Assessment Survey (MADRAS) 2019

Thu, 15 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT

MADRAS 2019 was designed to assess completeness of death registration in rural Madhya Pradesh. The survey was conducted in August 2019 in ten randomly selected villages of a district in MP. The survey consisted of a census of all households in these villages. Investigators in the survey were student volunteers from universities and colleges in India. The questionnaire used in the study is available for download. Data used in the survey are being processed, and will be available soon. The survey was organized by Kanika Sharma, Aashish Gupta, and Neeraj Kumar Singh.

The questionnaire is available here. It is in both English and Hindi.

Data: Coming soon!

Sangita awarded Parker Frisbie Publication Award for her paper on coal and child height.

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Sangita is among the two winners of the Parker Frisbie Publications Award for this year. The award committee had following to say about her paper:

"Her impressive paper, “The child health impacts of coal: evidence from India’s coal expansion,” examines the child health impacts associated with a large coal plant expansion in India. Using a rich collection of space-time matched data sources including India’s Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), the Central Electricity Authority of India’s CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector, and satellite data from the Multiangle Imaging SpecroRadiometer, she shows that coal plant exposure at birth predicts decreased height and that the result is likely due to air pollution. The effects, moreover, do not differ by socioeconomic background and are robust to a variety of alternative specifications and explanations. This paper highlights an important health burden to India’s young that could increase unless appropriate policy action is taken to either curtail coal plant expansions, or mitigate emissions from them, because coal plants are projected to continue to expand in India in the near future."

Congratulations Sangita! r.i.c.e is proud of you.

The association of early-life exposure to ambient PM2.5 and later-childhood height-for-age in India: an observational study

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Dean Spears, Sagnik Dey, Sourangsu Chowdhury, Noah Scovronick, Sangita Vyas, Joshua Apte

Published in: Environmental Health

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Abstract:

This paper by Dean and Sangita (co-authored with Sagnik Dey, Sourangshu Choundary, Noah Scovronick and Joshua Apte) is the first study to directly estimate the impact of early-life exposure to ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) on child height-for-age at the range of exposures found in India. It is well known that children in India are exposed to high levels of ambient PM2.5, yet population-level evidence of associations with adverse health outcomes from within the country is limited.

The study finds that children in the sample were exposed to an average of 55 μ3 of PM2.5in their birth month.After controlling for potential confounders, a 100 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5 in the month of birth was associated with a 0.05 [0.01–0.09] standard deviation reduction in child height. For an average 5-year-old girl, this represents a height deficit of 0.24 [0.05–0.43] cm. It also found that exposure to PM2.5 in the last trimester in utero and in the first few months of life are significantly (p < 0.05) associated with child height deficits.

Because average exposure to ambient PM2.5 is high in India, where child height-for-age is a critical challenge in human development, the results highlight ambient air pollution as a public health policy priority. Ambient PM2.5 exposure is likely to increase in India in the near future. Therefore, the health burden that the paper quantifies here could potentially increase unless appropriate policy action is taken to reduce air pollution throughout India.

In particular, although policy conversations often focus on Delhi (and, to a lesser extent, other big cities), we find effects throughout India, and on both rural and urban children, suggesting that the policy challenges are broader than is commonly understood. Because child height has lasting consequences for human capital, this is a problem with potential ramifications throughout Indian society and the economy.

Eggs in Mid-Day Meals, Anganwadis Will Ensure Nutrition – and Gender Parity | Kanika Sharma | The Wire

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Provision of eggs will ensure that girls and boys eat nutritious food in equal amounts and in unison, thereby upending the patriarchal norm of women eating last and least in the household. Findings from the SARI Survey conducted by r.i.c.e. are cited in the article. Read more...

The Growing Threat of Climate Change in India | Vishnu Padmanabhan, Sneha Alexander, Prachi Srivastava | LiveMint

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Extreme events that have an immediate impact and long-term effect of rising temperatures are endangering lives and crippling economic activity in India. In this article, the authors cite findings from the new book by r.i.c.e. Executive Director Dean Spears, "Air: Pollution, Climate Change and India’s Choice Between Policy and Pretence". In the book he asserts that a newborn exposed to a week of hot and humid environment is much less likely to survive compared to one faced with a less hostile condition. Read more...

The child health impacts of coal: evidence from India's coal expansion

Sun, 21 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Sangita Vyas

Published in: SSRN

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Abstract:

This paper investigates the child health impacts associated with a large coal plant expansion in India. Using place and cohort fixed effects, exposure to a median-sized coal plant at birth is associated with a height deficit of 0.09-0.10 standard deviations. This effect is consistent with the underlying mechanism of air pollution: coal plant capacity expansions are associated with increases in air pollution, and the child height deficit associated with increases in capacity is decreasing in distance from the coal plant.

The results are not driven by changes in other observable characteristics, and height pre-trends are similar in places that receive coal plants and those that do not. Heterogeneity analyses find similar effects on children of rich and poor households, but rich households are more likely to live closer to coal plants than poor households.

New SARI datasets!

Thu, 18 Jul 2019 00:00:00 GMT

I am so pleased to announce the release of three new SARI datasets from Maharasthra, Jharkhand, and Bihar! You can download the data here after entering your name, email address, and occupation.

Please join me in congratulating Payal, Nazar, and Nidhi on this fantastic data collection and preparation work, and also in thanking the SARI surveyors Bharati Kadam, Gunjan Kumari, Kailash Kumar, Kavita Naik, Laxmi Saini, Nisarg Jagtap, Poonam Saini, Pragati Pandurang Desai, Pramod Rajak, Rohini Hanbartii, Sachin Shere, Sanita Sutar, Sharmili Karkar, and Vivek Koli. We are so grateful for your hard work!

The Bihar, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra samples of SARI were collected in 2018 and include questions on the following topics:

religion & caste
sanitation
gender
reservations
intermarriage between people of different castes
aadhaar & government benefits
untouchability
household assets
mental health
beef eating & violence against Muslims
compassion for the poor
knowledge about reservations & opinions on policies
attitudes towards meat eating
violence against spouse
medical abortion
experience of discrimination
class identification

Dean, Diane, Sangita and Nikhil feature in a video made to honour Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar

Fri, 28 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Dean, Diane, Sangita and Nikhil feature in a video project by Chandrakant Agame at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University, Lonere, as part of his work as the Literature Secretary of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Anniversary Committee.

In this video celebrating the birth anniversary of Dr Ambedkar, they talk briefly about his work on Indian society and caste, and how that has influenced r.i.c.e's research in understanding the health and wellbeing of children in rural India.

Watch the entire video which features several prominent scholars and activists from various fields here.

Dean's new book on air pollution and climate change is out!

Wed, 26 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Dean's new book on air pollution and climate change, "Air: Pollution, Climate Change, and India's Choice Between Policy and Pretence," is out! You can get a Kindle copy here and a print copy here.

Please share it widely online and in person!

From everyone at r.i.c.e., "Congratulations, Dean!" We are so excited to read this in book form!

Here's the summary on the book jacket to pique your interest:

India’s air pollution is a deadly threat. Will its politics meet the challenge?

Hundreds of millions of Indians live and die exposed to the world’s worst air pollution. The harms are worse than you think. Because pollution hurts growing children, it threatens the health and economy of the next generation. No family can save itself from the collective danger of pollution. That is the task of governments — which instead have enacted showy, ineffective policies while neglecting even to measure the problem.

With a smart package of policies, India could have healthier air. In fact, some strategies could improve air pollution today, while also reducing India’s deep vulnerability to future climate change. But to do so would demand an honest reckoning with both challenges: particles in the air and rising temperatures. India’s children need a serious commitment to change — not empty reassurance.

There is no conflict between a healthy environment and economic progress. The compelling stories and hard facts in this important book rebut that outdated, narrow debate. It is time to clear the air.

From Arundhati Roy to Amitav Ghosh: Books by Indian Authors to Add to Your Reading List in June | Simantini Dey | News 18

Wed, 05 Jun 2019 00:00:00 GMT

In this article, Simantini Dey highlights several new books released in June, 2019. One that is recommended is "Air (Pollution, Climate Change and India's Choice Between Policy and Pretence)" by Dean Spears. Read more ...

Willingness to sacrifice for Climate mitigation: r.i.c.e's new research now available

Mon, 27 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT

A new research paper by Diane, Payal and Dean that studies people's willingness to sacrifice to achieve climate mitigation is out now!

Using representative data from round 2 of the Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI), this paper finds that people are willing to accept some electricity cuts to prevent climate damages and the demand curve slopes down, meaning that fewer respondents are willing to accept larger costs of mitigation. Moreover, people who reported that temperatures are increasing and that this is bad were more likely to report being willing to accept electricity cuts for mitigation than those who either did not report that temperatures are increasing or did not report that this is bad.

Find more about the paper and a downloadable link here

Willingness to Sacrifice for Climate Mitigation in Representative Samples of Indian Adults

Sat, 25 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Dean Spears, Payal Hathi, Diane Coffey

Published in: IZA Policy Paper

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Abstract:

This paper studies people’s willingness to sacrifice to achieve climate mitigation using a new-survey experiment that is representative of adults in the Indian state of Rajasthan and the city of Mumbai. In contrast to developed countries, few studies investigate climate policy preferences or willingness to sacrifice for mitigation in developing countries, and even fewer use samples representative of the population.

In Rajasthan and Mumbai, 4340 respondents, who reported having electricity at home, were administered a randomized experiment that was designed to allow a description of a demand curve for mitigation: by how much demand for mitigation decrease as the ‘price’ of mitigation increases. Each participant was asked about a random hypothetical sacrifice scenario involving their willingness to accept electricity cut for one of the following: one additional hour per day, three additional hours per day, or five additional hours per day.

The study finds that most respondents are willing to accept some electricity cuts to prevent climate damages and the demand curve slopes down, meaning that fewer respondents are willing to accept larger costs of mitigation. Moreover, respondents who reported that temperatures are increasing and that this is bad were more likely to report being willing to accept electricity cuts for mitigation than those who either did not report that temperatures are increasing or did not report that this is bad.

Why Goti Bai’s LPG Cylinder Lies In A Cowshed, Unused | Swagata Yadavar | IndiaSpend

Wed, 15 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Pradham Mantri Ujjwala Yojana is a programme which started in May, 2016 to assist below-poverty-line households in obtaining LPG to cook in place of traditional fuels. These fuels, such as firewood, cow dung and dry grass, when used in cooking, are harmful for respiratory health. In this article, Swagata Yadavar lays out the reasons why people continue to use traditional fuels, even after receiving an LPG connection. Findings from the February, 2019 r.i.c.e. study on this subject are cited throughout, along with quotes from Aashish Gupta. Recommendations by r.i.c.e. researchers on how to promote the use of LPG are also included. Read more...

Why Ujjwala Hasn’t Extinguished Chulhas In Rural and Small-Town India | Sanjay Dutta | The Times of India

Mon, 13 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT

On the face of it, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana has accomplished a lot. Since the scheme was launched on May 1, 2016, more than 7 crore households have received subsidized cooking gas (LPG) connections. Over 82% of those who got the connections have bought refills in the first year. A survey done by r.i.c.e. in February, 2019 found that 90% of Ujjwala beneficiaries still use old ways of cooking. Beneficiaries cite the high cost of LPG refills and the belief that food cooked on a chulha is tastier as reasons for using the old ways. Read more...

N-ISSUP publishes a short article on Diane's research on neonatal mortality and facility birth in India

Mon, 06 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT

N-ISSUP, the online magazine of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, published a short article based on Diane’s paper “The association between neonatal death and facility birth in regions of India” published in the Demographic Research.

The article summarizes the main finding of the paper that there is important heterogeneity in the association between neonatal death (NNM) and hospital birth across regions in India. The country contributes more NNM to the global NNM than any other country in the world, yet the NNM of 30 per 1000 births masks wide spatial variations. For example, among states with more than 25 million people, Uttar Pradesh had the highest NNM at 45 per 1000, and Kerala had the lowest at 4 per 1000.

Sustainable Development Goal 3 aims to reduce global neonatal mortality (NNM) to 12 deaths per 1,000 births by 2030. Reducing NNM in India is critical to this goal because it accounts for 27% of global neonatal deaths. Diane suggests that it would be worthwhile for future research to compare how delivery and postpartum care practices differ across different regions in India.

Find more on this and a downloadable link of the original paper from our earlier blog post. You can also download the paper directly from the Demographic Research website.

The Wire bulletin covers r.i.c.e's research on the solid fuel use and LPG ownership.

Thu, 25 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Click here to watch the Wire Bulletin video

The Wire covered r.i.c.e’s new research on the persistence of solid fuel use despite increases in LPG ownership [report runs from 00 to 4:30 mins]. Here are some points covered in the bulletin:

The Pradhanmantri Ujjawal Yojna is often presented as a grand success, particularly in the ongoing election season. Most beneficiaries under the scheme, however, are forced to use traditional chulha for cooking.

A new research study by r.i.c.e finds that over 85 per cent of Ujjawala beneficiaries’ resort to using the traditional chulha because of the financial burden involved in refilling the gas cylinder.

The study conducted in the second half of 2018 in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh visited over 1550 households to understand more about the impact of Ujjawal scheme. These four states account for about 40 per cent of the total rural population of India.

Launched in 2016, the government provides a gas cylinder, regulator, and pipe for free, and gives loans to households for the stove and the gas in the first cylinder under the Ujjawala scheme. According to the central government, over 60 million families have benefitted from it; the current study found that 76 per cent of households in these parts of rural India have benefitted from this scheme. Yet, close to 98 per cent of households continue to keep both traditional chulha and gas stove.

The study asked households about what they(fuel source) used for cooking food items such as rice, roti(chapati), dal(pulses), vegetables, tea and [boiling] milk the day before the survey. Among the surveyed households, around 27 per cent reported to have used gas stove exclusively, 37 per cent reported using both gas stove and traditional chulha, and 36 per cent reported using the traditional chulha. Moreover, among Ujjawala beneficiaries, 53 per cent households reported using only traditional chulha, while 32 per cent used both chulha and gas stove.

Ujjawala beneficiary households are poorer, on average, compared to those who got (LPG) gas connection own their own. As a result, refilling the cylinder constitutes a greater fraction of their monthly consumption, thus making them less likely to do so. The study found that about 70 per cent of families spends nothing on solid fuels; even with the subsidy, the money spent on the gas cylinder is much higher compared to that on solid fuels.

Gender disparity plays an important role too. The work of cooking with solid fuels is performed by women, and they also play a major role in collecting/making solid fuels. Moreover, women’s task is usually seen to have a lower opportunity cost. Add to this the fact that women also have low status and are typically not economic decision-makers in the household. These factors likely contribute to the use of solid fuels, even among households that own LPG.

Clean Fuel? Modi's Ujjwala Fails: Poor Households 2.5 Times "Less Likely" To Use LPG | Rajiv Shah | Counterview

Tue, 23 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The Government of India's Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, launched in 2016 in order to promote the use of clean cooking fuel to villagers by subsidizing liquid petroleum gas (LPG) connections, and thus reduce exposure to "harmful" indoor air pollution, has mainly helped the rural elite, according to a recent survey by r.i.c.e., cited in this article. Poor households are more likely to have received LPG through Ujjwala. They may be "less likely to get a refill immediately after a cylinder becomes empty" and use solid fuels which cause pollution, for cooking, because "refilling a cylinder costs almost half the average monthly per-capita expenditure" of a poor household. Read more...

Opinion | Ujjwala: A Half Cooked Programme | Nikhil Srivastav | LiveMint

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

In this OpEd piece, Nikhil Srivastav, r.i.c.e. Research Manager, argues that, if the Ujjwala LPG-connection scheme is to accomplish its goals of improvement of cooking conditions for women and enhancement of Indian citizens’ health, then the government needs to work on changing people’s attitudes and beliefs. This could be a long drawn-out process. A 2018 r.i.c.e. survey found three quarters of the households that responded had LPG connections. However, over 85% of the survey’s respondents said they did not use them exclusively because they saw solid fuel as a better option for taste and the health of family members eating the food. Read more...

85% Ujjwala Beneficiaries Still Using Chulhas: RICE Survey Exposes Failure of Modi’s Pet Project | Staff | News Central

Sat, 13 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Eighty-five percent of Ujjwala beneficiaries are still using chulhas according to a survey by r.i.c.e. The survey shows that most rural households that received LPG connections still tend to use the chulhas because they do not have the financial capacity to refill their cylinder. Read more...

Ujjwala Scheme Has Limited Impact on LPG Usage | Arjun Srinivas | LiveMint

Sat, 13 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The widespread use of solid fuels such as wood and dung for cooking pollutes households and adds to India’s disease burden. To tackle this, the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana was launched in May 2016 to promote clean cooking by providing poor women with free LPG connections.But even as the number of LPG connections has increased, LPG usage hasn’t, according to a new research paper by Aashish Gupta and others at r.i.c.e. Read more...

About 85% of Ujjwala Beneficiaries in Four States Still Use Earthen Stoves | Priscilla Jebaraj | The Hindu

Fri, 12 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojna (PMUY) is being touted in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) election campaigning as one of the big successes of the incumbent government. The hidden truth is that most rural households with LPG (liquiefied petroleum gas) connections still use chulha_s with firewood or dung cakes, to the detriment of rural health. A new study from r.i.c.e. shows that 85% of Ujjwala beneficiaries in rural Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan still use solid fuels for cooking due to financial reasons, as well as gender inequalities. The resultant indoor air pollution can lead to infant deaths and harm child development, as well as contribute to heart and lung disease among adults, especially the women, cooking on _chulha_s. Read more..._

Check out our new research study on the persistence of soild fuel use despite increases in LPG ownership!

Thu, 11 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Exposure to air pollution has important consequences for public health. Several studies have held that a major source of air pollution exposure in rural India is the use of solid fuels, such as dung cakes and wood, for cooking and heating. High levels of indoor air pollution can kill infants, get in the way of healthy child development, and contribute to heart and lung disease.

In May 2016, the Indian government launched the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, which aims to promote the use of clean cooking fuel in rural India. Reducing the use of solid fuels is an important public health goal because it would reduce exposure to harmful indoor air pollution. The central government claimed that by December 2018, 6 crore households had received access to LPG through the Ujjwala Yojana, and that 90% of all Indian households owned an LPG cylinder and stove.

An important question to be asking is how successful have these government initiatives been in reducing solid fuel use in rural India? This article addresses this question using data from a 2018 survey on fuel use which revisited households originally visited in 2014 in rural Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh.

We find that that Ujjwala has led to a substantial increase in LPG ownership among rural households in the sample states. About three-quarters of households reported owning LPG at the time of the survey, up from about one-third in 2014. This is an important improvement. However, we also find that many LPG owners, and particularly those that received cylinders through Ujjwala, still use solid fuels to cook. Most LPG owners also own a stove that uses solid fuel, and among households owning both, about three-quarters of households used solid fuels the day before the survey. 37% used both LPG and solid fuels, and 36% cooked everything using solid fuels.

Although the Ujjwala Yojana has substantially increased access to LPG, many households that have LPG continue to use solid fuels, and these household behaviours have important implications for the potential health impacts of Ujjwala. Households that continue to use solid fuels continue to expose themselves and their neighbours to harmful air pollution. Discouraging the use of solid fuels and promoting exclusive LPG use will be essential to realizing the full health benefits of the expansion in LPG ownership brought about by Ujjwala.

Read the paper here.

Persistence of solid fuel use despite increases in LPG ownership: New survey evidence from rural north India (working paper)

Fri, 29 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Aashish Gupta, Sangita Vyas, Payal Hathi, Nazar Khalid, Nikhil Srivastav, Dean Spears, Diane Coffey

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Abstract:

Solid fuel use is an important contributor to air pollution and disease burden in India. We present survey evidence documenting LPG ownership and cooking fuel use in rural north India. LPG ownership has increased rapidly, substantially driven by the Ujjwala Yojana.

Three-quarters of rural households in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh now have LPG. Almost all of these households also have a stove that uses solid fuels, and among those owning both, almost three-quarters used solid fuels the day before the survey. Poverty, relative costs of cooking fuels, gender inequality, and beliefs regarding the ease, food taste, and health impacts of cooking with solid fuels versus LPG are important contributors to high solid fuel use despite LPG ownership.

Households that continue to use solid fuels continue to expose themselves, their household members, and their neighbours to harmful air pollution. To realize the full health benefits of Ujjwala’s expansion in LPG ownership, attention must now be turned towards discouraging the use of solid fuels and promoting exclusive use of LPG. This is an urgent priority for research, policy, and action.

Replication stata-do files for these analyses are available at here. The dataset for the analysis can be downloaded here.

Coercion, Construction, and 'ODF Paper pe' : Swachha Bharat According to Local Officials published in The India Forum

Tue, 26 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The India Forum- a Journal Magazine on Contemporary Issues published our article “ Coercion, Construction, and 'ODF Paper pe': Swachha Bharat According to Local Officials." This article is based on extensive qualitative interviews with government officials at the village and block levels across 11 districts in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar. These local officials were entrusted with the implementation of the Swachha Bharat Mission at their Panchayat/blocks.

The paper sheds light on how the SBM is implemented on the ground. As the title of the paper suggests, there is widespread use of threats and coercion for latrine construction. Not only the villagers, the officials at villages and blocks were also under a lot of pressure to meet their construction targets, often in a limited time period, or else they would lose their job. The government’s impatience in declaring villages, blocks, districts and, eventually states, and the entire country ODF (Open Defecation Free) meant that the focus was mostly on the latrine construction and not on its usage. However, we found that many places that had been declared ODF still had significant levels of open defecation- they were declared ODF only on paper.

Read The India Forum paper here. Read findings from our quantitative survey which accompanied the qualitative research here.

Survey of Rural Sanitation and Solid Fuel Use, 2018, is publicly available now!

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

We are excited to announce that the data from our new survey on the status of rural sanitation and solid fuel use is publicly available now. The survey visited rural parts of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in September-December 2018 and collected data on 9,812 individuals living in over 1500 households. It covered rural sanitation behaviour, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, cooking fuel use, the Ujjawala Scheme, and several other topics.

This is an important region to be thinking about because it represents about 40 per cent of India's rural population and home to 45 per cent of households without a toilet or latrine. A significant fraction of all people worldwide who defecate in the open live in these four Indian states. Our results, therefore, are relevant not merely to sanitation policy in India, but also to addressing the global sanitation challenge.

Growing up in India we all had heard about the famous saying, "gaon ki hawa aur shahar ki dawa " (roughly translated as [fresh] air of villages and [better] medicines in cities) can cure all illness. However, that is no longer the case as air in villages are getting increasingly polluted. A major source of air pollution in rural India is the use of solid fuels for cooking and heating. There is increased awareness now about the fact that exposure to air pollution has important consequences for public health. High levels of air pollution can kill infants and older people, get in the way of healthy child development, and contribute to heart and lung disease. Our dataset provides useful information on the source and extent of the solid fuel use and practices of rural households that can help us gain useful insights on the matter.

To download and know more about other features of the dataset, please visit here

Nazar interviewed on DW News Asia!

Mon, 25 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Nazar was recently interviewed about the Swacch Bharat Mission on DW News Asia. It was great that he was able to publicize the results of the 2018 Survey of Rural Sanitation and Fuel Use on TV!

Check out the news story and interview with Nazar on You Tube here. (The whole story is certainly worth watching, but if you're looking for Nazar's interview in particular, it starts at 5:30.)

Half of non-Dalits in Rajasthan, UP, One Third in Delhi Report "Practicing" Untouchability | Counterview Desk | Counterview

Mon, 25 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

This article highlights excerpts from a recent paper “Open defecation: Manual scavenging’s legacy in rural India” by Payal Hathi and Diane Coffey of rice. The paper is based on the results of a mobile phone survey, called Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI), which collected data on caste prejudice among adults in several states in India. The survey confirms what manual scavenging activists have long argued: that Indian society suffers from deeply ingrained casteist attitudes. Read more...

Implications of WASH Benefits trials for water and sanitation

Mon, 25 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Diane Coffey, Dean Spears

Published in: The Lancet Global Health

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Abstract:

This paper argues that while the results of the WASH Benefits trials are important for understanding sanitation intervention and similar programmes, they do not imply that child health would not be improved by a large transition from open defecation to latrine use, especially in a densely populated area, and that these results are consistent with existing observational data.

The WASH Benefits trials study assessed the effect on child height-for-age of “household sanitation upgrades from unimproved to improved latrines” in the child’s compound for Bangladesh and Kenya. They found that child height was not increased by upgrading sanitation facilities. An important aspect of these studies was that the adult latrine use was high at baseline: only about 5% of adults in each setting initially defecated in the open.

The current paper analyses data from two Indian DHS. Unlike in the settings of WASH Benefits, in rural India most people defecate in the open. In both Indian surveys, the fraction of households in a child’s neighbourhood that defecate in the open is associated with a large difference in average child height-for-age. The fraction of households that use improved sanitation is not associated with height once open defecation is controlled. Further demographic evidence suggests that the health consequences of open defecation are greater where population density is high; if so, children in rural India are at especially high risk.

Coercion, construction, and ’ODF paper pe’: The Swachh Bharat Mission, according to local government officials

Mon, 25 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Aashish Gupta, Nazar Khalid, Payal Hathi, Nikhil Srivastav, Sangita Vyas, Diane Coffey

Published in: Center for Open Science

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Abstract:

This article draws upon 156 qualitative interviews conducted with the village and block-level officials in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh, as well as on new quantitative survey data, to answer these questions. It finds that local officials used coercion to achieve latrine construction; that they were under substantial pressure from higher-ranking government officials; that they often organized contractors to construct latrines; that construction occurred quickly, at different times in different places; that the ODF declaration process did not ensure that villages were, in fact, open defecation free; and that although the SBM taught officials about twin pit latrines, the adoption of this safe, affordable technology by villagers was nevertheless limited.

These findings fill important gaps in today’s policy debates. Despite the fact that improving rural sanitation is critical to both improving health and spurring economic growth in India, and despite the nearly Rs. 34,000 crore that was allocated to the SBM-Gramin between 2014 and 2018 (Accountability Initiative, 2018), surprisingly little has been written about how the SBM operates in villages. Understanding SBM implementation is important both for public accountability and to inform future sanitation programs.

Child Height in India: New Data, Familiar Challenges | Diane Coffey and Dean Spears | Ideas for India

Sun, 24 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Children in India are among the shortest in the world. This article, by Diane Coffey and Dean Spears, uses the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) data to examine the complexity and diversity of child height in the country. It finds that India's overall average child height-for-age improved between 2005-06 and 2015-16. Although important, this increase is small relative to India’s overall height deficit and its economic progress. The root causes of India's stunting reflect social forces and social inequality: gender discrimination in the case of maternal nutrition, and untouchability in the case of open defecation. Read more...

2014 and 2018 Rural Sanitation Surveys

Sat, 23 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The 2014 and 2018 sanitation surveys were designed to explore the open defecation challenge in the five plains states of north India: Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. These states are home to 40% of the population of India, and to 45% of households in India without a toilet or latrine. At least 30% of all people worldwide who defecate in the open live in these five Indian states. Our results, therefore, are relevant not merely to sanitation policy in India, but also to addressing the global sanitation challenge.

2014 SQUAT Survey. The 2014 Sanitation Quality, Use, Access, and Trends (SQUAT) Survey visited 13 districts in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Haryana. See dataset, documentation, and questionnaire here.

2018 Survey of Rural Sanitation and Solid Fuel Use. The 2018 Survey of Rural Sanitation and Solid Fuel Use collected data on rural sanitation behavior, cooking fuel use, the Swacch Bharat Mission, the Ujjawala Scheme, and other topics. Across 11 districts in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar, it visited a subset of 157 villages from the 327 villages visited by the 2014 SQUAT survey. See dataset, documentation, and questionnaire here.

2014 + 2018 panel. If interested in the panel dataset that combines information from both the 2014 SQUAT Survey and the 2018 Survey of Rural Sanitation and Solid Fuel Use, see datasets and documentation here.

EPW & IZA article replication. If you are interested in reproducing the results from either our 2014 EPW paper, or our 2019 IZA paper, you can access the datasets and/or do files to do that at the following links:

For Coffey, D., Gupta, A., Hathi, P., Khurana, N., Spears, D., Srivastav, N., Vyas, S. (2014). Open Defecation. Economic & Political Weekly, 49, no. 38: 43. See here.
For Gupta, A., Khalid, N., Desphande, D., Hathi, P., Kapur, A., Srivastav, N., Vyas, S., Spears, D. & Coffey, D. (2019). Changes in Open Defecation in Rural North India: 2014-2018. IZA Discussion Paper No. 12065. See here.

Solid fuel article replication: See here.

Open defecation: Manual scavenging’s legacy in rural India

Fri, 15 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Payal Hathi, Diane Coffey

Published by: Indian Institute of Advanced Studies

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Abstract:

Manual scavenging is caste-based work which has been handed down over generations, subjecting the same families and communities to deep humiliation, social exclusion, and poor health. This book chapter argues that same casteist attitudes that relegate Dalits to the filthy work of manual scavenging are at the root of many Indians’ distaste for the simple pit latrines that the government is promoting in its campaign to eliminate open defecation.

The association between handling faeces and the social stigma that manual scavenging castes have borne for centuries means that most Indians today are unwilling to empty their own latrine pits/tanks. As more and more Dalits turn away from the humiliation of manual scavenging work, there are fewer people who are willing to empty a latrine pit, making open defecation seem like a better option for many households. Without confronting and resisting the casteism that allows manual scavenging to persist, it will be difficult to make meaningful progress on tackling India’s sanitation challenges.

The association between neonatal death and facility birth in regions of India

Fri, 15 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Diane Coffey

Published in: Demographic Research

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Abstract:

This paper assesses evidence for the hypothesis that facility births reduce NNM using new data from the National Family Health Survey, 2015-2016. It finds that for babies born outside of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, facility birth is robustly associated with neonatal survival. The controlled association between facility birth and neonatal survival is 7 per 1000 in the east region (West Bengal, Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha) and 13 per 1000 in the central region (Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh). In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, however, being born in a health facility appears to confer no neonatal survival advantage.

Documenting the lack of an association between facility birth and neonatal death in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar is important because these states collectively contribute 43% of India’s NNM. These findings suggest the need for future research to investigate whether and how the quality of maternal and newborn care in health facilities differs across regions.

Reducing open defecation in rural India is an important human development goal, but at what cost? Read Sangita's piece in Hindustan Times

Sun, 03 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Sangita’s article in Hindustan Times raises some pertinent questions about the ways in which the Swachh Bharat Mission has been implemented. She draws attention to the fact that the Mission’s success in getting latrines constructed and the subsequent decline in the practice of open defecation has come about through the use of threats and coercion.

In a survey of four north Indian states, every second person had heard of fines, denial of government benefits, and being stopped from defecating in the open, being used as tools to compel latrine construction and use in their own village. Some people were denied their rations, pensions, and other government benefits. Moreover, the survey finds that the use of force had a visible caste angle to it: Dalits were twice as likely while Adivasis were thrice as likely to be at the receiving end of threats and coercion.

The implementation of the SBM has come at a cost to certain fundamental rights. She argues, "[T]he tactics employed by the SBM present important trade-offs that require public debate. Evaluating these trade-offs will at the very least require understanding how many people have been hurt because of the SBM, and how much it has accelerated the decline in open defecation. Reducing open defecation in rural India is an important human development goal, but at what cost?" Read more

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan: Why India’s Toilet Data Is Too Good To Be True | Sneha Alexander | LiveMint

Fri, 25 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The latest data from the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) portal suggests that 27 out of India’s 36 states and Union territories are now open defecation free (ODF) with 98.6% of Indian households having access to toilets. While toilets are an important first step for sanitation, they still need to be used. Reducing open defecation requires behavioural change. This article by Sneha Alexander cites the findings of the recent study by rice and Accountability Initiative on the effectiveness of the SBM in promoting toilet ownership and use in rural north India. Read More...

Coercion-Induced 26% Hindi Belt Open Defecation Decline "Unlikely" to Last: Study | Rajiv Shah | Counterview

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Key findings of the study by rice and Accountability Initiative, "Changes in Open Defecation in Rural North India: 2014 to 2018," are summarized in this article by Rajiv Shah. Read More...

Is India Really 96% Open Defecation Free? | Santosh Mehrotra | The Wire

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

In this article, author Santosh Mehrotra, human development economist and professor at JNU, raises questions about government claims of success in ending the practice of open defecation in rural areas of India through the SBM. Data from the recent survey by rice and Accountability Initiatve, "Changes in Open Defecation in Rural North India 2014 to 2018", is cited extensively. Read more... See also in Business Standard...

‘Refusal’ To Change: In Northern India, Toilet Ownership Increases, But Open Defecation Still Rampant, Says Study | Swarajya Staff | Swarajya

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

This article highlights some of the key findings from the study, "Changes in Open Defecation in Rural North India: 2014 to 2018", conducted by rice and Accountability Initiative. Read More...

Swachh Bharat Mission Gains Have Come at a Cost | Sangita Yvas | Hindustan Times

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

It is true that the reduction in open defecation in rural India has accelerated under the SBM. The recent study by rice and Accountability Initiative of the effectiveness of the four year old programme, shows that the tactics employed by the SBM present important trade-offs that require public debate. Reducing open defecation in rural India is an important human development goal. In this article, author Sangita Yvas, research fellow at rice, poses the question, but at what cost? Read More...

First Published: Jan 22, 2019 07:57 IST

Dainik Bhaskar, a prominent Hindi newspaper, reports on our new research on changes in open defecation in India: 2014-2018.

Wed, 23 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

The Dainik Bhaskar (DB), a prominent Hindi language newspaper, published a comprehensive report on r.i.c.e and Accountability Initiative of Centre for Policy Research's (CPR) new research on changes in open defecation in India: 2014-2018. We were thrilled that the DB helped us share this research with millions of readers by carrying this report in several editions across India. Here is the photo of the article. You can also find it here

For our non-Hindi readers, here are the main points covered in the DB report:

44 % people in Madhya Pradesh (MP), Uttar Pradesh (UP), Rajasthan and Bihar continue to defecate in the open, although this is an improvement of 26 per cent from what it was in 2014. This proportion remains despite MP and Rajasthan being declared open defecation free (ODF), and Bihar and Rajasthan are soon to be declared one!

The research survey visited 120 villages and covered about ten thousand people. Of the households that didn't own a latrine in 2014, 57 % of them have a toilet now. However, the survey found the use of coercive tactics and force by the government machinery. People were threatened with the ration cuts or fines and were forced to build latrines; compared to General caste people, Dalits were twice as likely, and Adivasis were thrice as likely to face coercion.

The paper carried excerpts from their interview with Aashish: Caste system and untouchability are key reasons why open defecation exists in India. People believe that the task of cleaning toilets is reserved for those belonging to a specific caste. Therefore, these notions need to be tackled first.

Coercion is common; 56 per cent people in our survey admitted knowing about the threats and coercive tactics. In Bihar, one person was jailed for fifteen days, and his family had to pay a tip of 10000 to seek his release. In MP police visited those families who had refused to construct latrines. In Rajasthan, people were told that if they fail to build latrines then not only will their rations, pensions and other government benefits be stopped, their children's names will also be taken out from the school registers. In UP there were orders by the district magistrate (DM) to stop people's rations, and use other means to frighten people into constructing latrines.

The paper also reports that 23 % people (20 % women and 25 % men) defecate in the open despite owning a latrine. Overall, 39 % in UP, 60 % in Bihar, 25 % in MP and 53 % in Rajasthan defecate in the open, thus taking the total average to 44.

Open Defecation is responsible for the deaths of about two lakh children, every year, even before they reach their fifth birthday. It is the reason why the average height of Indian children is shorter compared to those of the poorer countries. Dean's research shows that bacteria in the faecal matter hinder not only the physical but cognitive health of children as well. There is abundant research that shows that shorter people earn less than their taller counterparts.

The report also includes excerpts from Nazar's interview: Government has shown haste in declaring the states as ODF. Post this declaration, the programs which are directed at motivating people to adopt toilets stop; MP and Rajasthan are clear examples of this, where such programs are no longer active. In such a situation, many more children would continue to see death.

Open Defecation Has Fallen After Swachh Bharat Campaign But Not As Much As Government Claims | Aarefa Johari | Scroll.in

Tue, 22 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

How effective has the Swachh Bharat Mission been? A new sanitation survey conducted by rice and Accountability Initiative in Bihar, MP, Rajasthan and UP has news that is both good and bad. The study, released on January 9, 2019, presents a comprehensive analysis of the successes and failures of the efforts which aim to make India open defecation-free by October 2, 2019.

The survey highlights two other significant revelations. One is that the implementation of Swachh Bharat has been accompanied by a disturbing amount of threats, coercion and violence, which puts the ethics of the programme’s rollout in question. Second, caste-based notions of purity and impurity play a role in determining open defecation choices and the kind of latrines that households choose to build in rural north India. Read More...

Using Mobile Phones to Measure Discrimination | Diane Coffey, Payal Hathi, Nazar Khalid, Nidhi Khurana and Amit Thorat | Ideas for India

Tue, 22 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

One aspect of human well-being that has often been overlooked in survey research on low- and middle-income countries is the extent to which prejudice and discrimination diminish social welfare. This article by researchers from rice and Jawaharlal Nehru University, discusses the results from a mobile phone survey dedicated to measuring explicit prejudice towards and experiences of discrimination among socially excluded groups, such as women, Dalits, and Muslims, in India. Read more...

After 4 Years Of Swachh Bharat, Open Defecation Down 26 Percentage Points, But Toilet Use Does Not Match Construction Spree | Swagata Yadavar | Indiaspend

Mon, 21 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

More Indians living in villages in Rajasthan, Bihar, MP and UP owned a latrine in 2018 than four years ago, yet 44% of them still defecate in the open, according to a study published by rice and Accountability Initiative. The study concluded that beliefs about caste "impurity" associated with emptying latrine pits were responsible for the high percentage of people who defecate in the open. Comments about the study by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation are included. Read more...

Open Defecation Continues Despite New Toilets | Staff | Down to Earth

Mon, 21 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Removing open defecation was one of the most touted goals of Swachh Bharat Mission. Lakhs of toilets have been built in India since 2014. 57% of households without a latrine in 2014 had one by 2018, according to a study by rice and Accountability Initiative conducted in Bihar, MP, Rajasthan and UP, but 23% of those with a toilet still went out in the open. Also, more than half the respondents said they have heard of people being coerced to stop open defecation. Watch the Youtube video...

Open Defecation Continues Unabated | Special Correspondent | The Hindu

Mon, 21 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

This article highlights key points of the recent study of the impact of the Swachh Bharat Mission in rural parts of four states in India conducted by rice and the Accountability Initiative. The study found that while open defecation has fallen and toilet ownership has increased, the percentage of people who own a toilet but continued to defecate in the open has remained unchanged between 2014 and 2018. Read more...

Release of r.i.c.e and Accountability Initiative's research study "Changes in open defecation in rural north India: 2014-2018."

Thu, 17 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

r.i.c.e is delighted to share that the release of the new research study on "Changes in open defecation in rural north India: 2014-2018” was held at India Habitat Centre (IHC) on the 9th January 2018.

The study, which was conducted in collaboration with the Accountability Initiative (AI) of the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), reports on the findings from the two surveys. The first survey visited rural Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh in late 2018, and collected data on 9,812 people and interviewed 156 local government officials. The second survey, in Udaipur district, visited 505 households in 19 villages and 60 households in 2 census towns. This new study sheds light on what the Swachh Bharat Mission did and on changes in open defecation since 2014. It is informative about changes because researchers revisited families who participated in a 2014 survey.

Sangita presented the main findings from the research. Broadly, these are:

the Swachh Bharat Mission has built a lot of latrines: 57% of households without a latrine in 2014 had one by 2018;
this has reduced open defecation more quickly than before but open defecation is by no means eliminated: 44 %of rural people over two years old in rural Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh defecate in the open;
and reductions may not be sustained, as it happened through threats and coercion: people being stopped while defecating in the open, government benefits being threatened, and fines. Among households that own a latrine, Dalits are over twice as likely to report experiencing one of these three forms of coercion. Adivasis were almost three times as likely.

Find Sangita's presentation slides here. The working paper on the study is available here.

It was amazing to see a large turnout for the event and lively post-presentation discussions.

The study has been covered in The Hindu, Livemint, Firstpost, IndiaSpend, Swarajya, The Wire, Scroll, BloombergQuint, Dainik Bhaskar and Navbharat Times among others. We'll be updating the "News" section of the website as more articles come out!

'One of Every Four Households Told Us They'd Heard Threats to Withhold Government Benefits' If They Didn't Build Toilets | Swagata Yadavar | India Spend

Thu, 17 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

In this article, author Swagata Yadavar, describes tactics used by government officials to coerce villagers to stop defecating in the open. Information from the recent rice/AI working paper 'Changes in Open Defecation in Rural North India 2014-2018', is cited. Excerpts from an interview with Nikhil Srivastav, Director of Research and Sanitation at rice, are included. Read more... See also Business Standard andThe Quint and additional followup in Business Standard.

Changes in Open Defecation in Rural India: 2014-2018

Thu, 17 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

This is Sangita’s presentation at the release of "Changes in Open Defecation in Rural India: 2014-2018". She discusses the evidence from a 2018 rural sanitation survey.

Working paper & Launch - 'Changes in open defecation in rural north India: 2014 - 2018'

Mon, 07 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

All of us at r.i.c.e. are excited to announce our new working paper, 'Changes in open defecation in rural north India: 2014 - 2018'. The paper documents the extent of open defecation in rural areas of four north Indian states. It is based on a new survey we conducted in the latter half of 2018 and a survey by Accountability Initiative in 2017. In the 2018 survey, we revisited households from the 2014 survey on open defecation in rural north India. The results of the 2014 survey were published in the Economic and Political Weekly.

Please also join us for the launch of the working paper on the 9th of January, 2019 at Magnolia Hall, India Habitat Center, New Delhi. Event details are available here.

Launch: Changes in open defecation in rural north India: 2014 - 2018

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

India Habitat Centre, Magnolia Hall, New Delhi

We are writing to share that the research institute for compassionate economics (r.i.c.e.) and Accountability Initiative of the Centre for Policy Research are releasing a new research paper: “Changes in open defecation in rural north India: 2014 – 2018.” We would also like to invite you to attend the launch of the paper, on 9th Jan, 2018, 3:00-6:00pm, India Habitat Centre, Magnolia Hall, New Delhi. The paper reports on two surveys. The first survey visited rural Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh in late 2018. It collected data on 9,812 people and interviewed 156 local government officials. The second survey, in Udaipur district, visited 505 households in 19 villages and 60 households in 2 census towns. This new research sheds light on what the Swachh Bharat Mission did and on changes in open defecation since 2014. It is informative about changes because researchers revisited families who participated in a 2014 survey. Conclusions from the 2014 survey were published in EPW. Much open defecation remains. 44% of rural people over two years old in rural Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh defecate in the open. This is an improvement: 70% of rural people in the 2014 survey defecated in the open. Almost a quarter of people in households with latrines nevertheless defecate in the open. This fraction is unchanged from 2014. In its activities and results, the SBM was diverse. Across the four states, many new latrines were constructed. 57% of households without a latrine in 2014 had one by 2018. States differ in the percent of households that received government support for latrine construction. States also differ in whether households constructed latrines themselves or received them from contractors organised by local government officials. People in households that received money to build their own latrine, rather than a government-constructed latrine, were almost 10 percentage points less likely to defecate in the open. If sustained, the SBM’s reduction in open defecation is likely to improve health, but it comes at a social cost. Coercion and threats were commonplace and sanctioned by local officials; violence sometimes occurred. Over half of respondents had heard of coercion in their village: people being stopped while defecating in the open, government benefits being threatened, and fines. Among households that own a latrine, Dalits are over twice as likely to report experiencing one of these three forms of coercion. Adivasis were almost three times as likely. The working paper is available here. We hope to see you at the launch on 9th Jan!

Changes in open defecation in rural north India: 2014 – 2018

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Aashish Gupta, Nazar Khalid, Devashish Desphande, Payal Hathi, Avani Kapur, Nikhil Srivastav, Sangita Vyas, Dean Spears, Diane Coffey

Published in: Social Science Research Network

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Abstract:

The paper reports on two surveys. The first survey, carried out by r.i.c.e., visited rural Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh in late 2018. It collected data on 9,812 people and interviewed 156 local government officials. The second survey, carried out by Accountability Initiative, in Udaipur district, visited 505 households in 19 villages and 60 households in 2 census towns.

This new research sheds light on what the SBM did and on changes in open defecation since 2014. It is informative about changes because researchers revisited families who participated in a 2014 survey. Conclusions from the 2014 survey were published in EPW.

Much open defecation remains.

44% of rural people over two years old in rural Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh defecate in the open. This is an improvement: 70% of rural people in the 2014 survey defecated in the open. Almost a quarter of people in households with latrines nevertheless defecate in the open (23% of rural people over the age of two). This fraction is unchanged from 2014.

In its activities and results, the SBM was diverse.

Across the four states, many new latrines were constructed. 57% of households without a latrine in 2014 had one by 2018. States differ in the percent of households that received government support for latrine construction. In Bihar, 19% received money, construction, or supplies from the government in the past five years to build a latrine. 53% did in Madhya Pradesh, 46% did in Rajasthan, and 43% did in Uttar Pradesh.

States also differ in whether households constructed latrines themselves or received them from contractors organised by local government officials. In Rajasthan, only 2% of households received a latrine built by contractors in the last five years; in Madhya Pradesh 25% did. In Uttar Pradesh this figure was 16% and in Bihar it was 9%. People in households that received money to build their own latrine, rather than a government-constructed latrine, were almost 10 percentage points less likely to defecate in the open.

Over half of respondents had heard of coercion in their village: people being stopped while defecating in the open, government benefits being threatened, and fines. Among households that own a latrine, Dalits are over twice as likely to report experiencing one of these three forms of coercion as households from other social backgrounds. Adivasis were almost three times as likely.

If sustained, the SBM’s reduction in open defecation is likely to improve health, but it comes at a social cost. Coercion and threats were commonplace and sanctioned by local officials; violence sometimes occurred. Most respondents had heard of coercion in their village: people being stopped while defecating in the open, government benefits being threatened, and fines. Among households that own a latrine, Dalits are over twice as likely to report experiencing one of these three forms of coercion as households from other social backgrounds. Adivasis were almost three times as likely.

Measuring open defecation in India using survey questions: a randomized survey experiment

Wed, 12 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMT

This study investigates differences in reported open defecation between a question about latrine use or open defecation for every household member, and a household-level question. Rural India is home to most of the world’s open defecation. India’s Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2015-2016 estimates that 54% of households in rural India defecate in the open. This measure is based on a question asking about the behavior of all household members in one question. Yet, studies in rural India find substantial open defecation among individuals living in households with latrines, suggesting that household-level questions underestimate true open defecation.

In 2018, we randomly assigned latrine-owning households in rural parts of four Indian states to receive one of two survey modules measuring sanitation behavior. 1,215 households were asked about latrine use or open defecation individually for every household member. 1,216 households were asked the household-level question used in India’s DHS: what type of facility do members of the household usually use?

We compare reported open defecation between households asked the individual-level questions and those asked the household-level question. Using two methods for comparing open defecation by question type, the individual-level question found 20 to 21 (95% CI 16 to 25 for both estimates) percentage points more open defecation than the household-level question, among all households, and 28 to 29 (95% CI 22 to 35 for both estimates) percentage points more open defecation among households that received assistance to construct their latrines.

Because reducing open defecation in India is essential to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, and exposure to open defecation has consequences for child mortality and development, it is essential to accurately monitor its progress.

This study was carried out in collaboration with 3ie, IFMR Lead, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Questionnaires and data are available here: Measurement study.

Rukmini S: Why Swachh Bharat Abhiyan matters for India’s children

Fri, 07 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Rukmini's article, published yesterday in LiveMint, contains some of the best data visualizations that I have seen from the NFHS-4. She also achieves the reasonable but rare step of emphasizing that many issues simultaneously are important: height among Indian children is a large enough challenge that it can reflect many problems, each big. Read the article!

Two photo essays that explain the broken market of faecal sludge management

Sat, 01 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMT

On World Toilet Day, the India Water Portal published two photo essays by Prof. Sharad Prasad and Prof Isha Ray. Prasad and Ray in their photo essays –Where there are no sewers: The Toilet Cleaners of Lucknow and _When the pit fills up: A day in the life of sanitation workers in urban India –_explore some important aspects of solid waste management.

Where there are no toilets: The Toilet Cleaners of Lucknow profiles Rajan and Vasumati, who work as manual scavengers, narrating the complexities of their lives. Aspiration for a better future for their children is what drives these families to continue the work that comes with the worst forms of ostracization. Starting other small business is not even an option because people around them, who already avoid touching things the members of this community have touched, for sure will avoid being their customers.

When the pit fills up: A day in the life of sanitation workers in urban India, on the other hand, explores new emerging but also somewhat broken market of septic tank emptying in Indian cities. Deepak, Rajesh, and Prabhu –all from Maadiga (dalit) community –empty septic tanks. Because, socially, this job is associated with manual scavenging tumbles the person to the rock-bottom in caste hierarchy, people from other castes are unwilling to do the job. Furthermore, the scarcity of Solid and Liquid Waste Management (SLWM) plants in Indian cities with lack of awareness among septic tank cleaners harms the sanitation workers because they do not use protective gears and exposes others to highly contagious faecal sludge when it is dumped in places close to people’s houses.

You can check out the two photo essays by clicking the links below.

Where there are no sewers: The Toilet Cleaners of Lucknow

When the pit fills up: A day in the life of sanitation workers in urban India

Social progress and social inequality: Measurements and assessments are needed... and possible

Sat, 03 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMT

One of r.i.c.e’s recent projects is SARI: a phone survey for Social Attitudes Research in India. A series of papers and other writings by Diane, Amit, Payal, Nazar, Nidhi, and the SARI team have shown that it is possible to construct a representative sample with a phone survey, and that people will answer survey questions (sometimes surprisingly) on what you might expect to be sensitive social issues.

Eventually, SARI may help us answer even bigger questions than can be asked in a phone survey. How are people in India doing these days? The first step in answering such a big question is deciding what the question means. “By what measure?”, we should ask. The classic measure is economic growth and wealth: GDP per capita or, for those concerned about the poor, poverty rates.

But researchers have understood for decades that the economic numbers do not tell us enough to fully understand progress in well-being. For example, economic growth could come at the cost of environmental destruction. A country could be rapidly increasing its GDP while at the same time making future suffering difficult to avoid. Most observers now agree that economic growth in the developed world has done so, causing climate change that will threaten lives and livelihoods in India and elsewhere.

So, a full assessment requires considering environmental costs alongside GDP. That has been part of the job of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): to take stock of the atmosphere’s well-being, including the prospects for climate damages. Forming such an international scientific consensus is hard work, but it is important and informative. Still, even incorporating environmental issues into a global stocktake does not fully capture well-being, because it does not measure social progress.

Such was the realization of the International Panel on Social Progress (IPSP), a project of over 200 authors, inspired by the collaboration of the IPCC. The IPSP report has recently been launched in a series of events around the world, including in Delhi on 1 November. The IPSP’s report addresses global challenges and Indian challenges, and is available for download online. One of my favorite parts is chapter 18, on global health and population.

As impressive as its three volumes are, they are a stocktaking for today’s situation. What about the future? Tracking social change and social inequality over time are new aspirations for India: SARI, as well as other social surveys such as the India Human Development Survey, show that new tools can measure change in all aspects of well-being. When tools such as these are further developed, widely used, and as commonplace as GDP statistics, then not only will we will have a better idea how people in India are doing, we will have the information we need to push social change forward.

Check out our new paper on experiences and perceptions of discrimination

Thu, 25 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMT

This week, a new paper by the SARI team came out in the Economic & Political Weekly. Here's the abstract:

Through the use of new survey data, the experiences and perceptions of discrimination among Dalits and Muslims have been quantified. One important result is that many respondents report experiencing discrimination at school and in interactions with government officials. These results are even more worrisome when we consider that self-reports of discrimination perhaps underestimate the true extent of the problem.

You can read the full paper here, and news coverage in Live Mint here.

The discrimination Dalits and Muslims face in India | Vishnu Padmanabhan | Live Mint

Thu, 25 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMT

How much discrimination do Dalits and Muslims face in their daily lives? A new study by Payal Hathi of the Research Institute of Compassionate Economics, and others, uses mobile phoen survey data to find that a significant proportion of Dalit and Muslim respondents faced some form of discrimination.

Nobel Laureate Bill Nordhaus’ Ideas for India | LiveMint & Ideas for India

Fri, 19 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Dean’s column summarizing Nordhaus’ Nobel-winning work was published in LiveMint and in Ideas for India.

Nobel laureate Bill Nordhaus’ ideas for India

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMT

William Nordhaus has won a share of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics for his contribution to climate economics. In this post from Ideas for India, Dean Spears discusses Nordhaus’ work and its implications for India. He contends that India is even more climate-vulnerable than realised by the Nobel laureate’s quantitative model that describes the interplay between the economy and climate.

Climate change may be the greatest externality that human economies have ever suffered. When I take an Uber from CR Park to the Indian Statistical Institute in Delhi, the exhaust fills the air we all share. When the coal plant in Kanpur generates energy to electrify villages in the state of Uttar Pradesh, the smoke diffuses for miles. Power plants and airplane flights in the US decades ago are already warming the atmosphere into which Indian children are born today. And all of us who are rich enough to be reading a blog are participating in emissions that will change lives for future generations.

That sounds like a daunting problem for economists. But, in fact, the solution is simple enough to be included in every introductory microeconomics class. The optimal response to an externality is to internalise it: make sure decision-makers have to pay the social marginal cost. The result is blackboard magic: families and businesses and everyone else would then choose the amount where the extra harm from the pollution just balances the extra benefits from the polluting activity. In other words, a carbon tax harnesses economic incentives to get climate policy right. And, with coloured chalk, it makes a beautiful blackboard diagram, too.

Drawing that picture is easy. Figuring out what number the carbon tax should be is a harder problem. For solving that problem, William Nordhaus won a share of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics. In the 1990s, Nordhaus built one of the first computer programmes that could do it. This is a Nobel-worthy contribution, and not merely because of its importance for practical policymaking. The Obama administration and other governments used Nordhaus’ model, among others, for quantitative regulation.

It is also worthy because of what it highlights for policy. Climate change – for all of its apparent enormity – is a problem within the reach of everyday economics. After Nobel prizes for frontier econometrics, for behavioural innovations, and for abstract theory, Nordhaus’ Nobel celebrates the classic lessons at the core of public economics – and the importance of translating these lessons into practice.

A radical proposal: Marginal cost should equal marginal benefits

Nordhaus developed an ‘Integrated Assessment Model’, often abbreviated as an IAM (Pindyck 2013). The model is ‘integrated’ because it combines a standard model of economic growth with a module that represents the climate science of the cumulative effect of emissions on temperature change. Then, the model wraps temperature change back to its economic consequences. An equation called the ‘damage function’ translates temperature increases into lost consumption.

Then, the model optimises. It chooses a carbon tax such that the benefits of polluting economic activity balance against the costs of climate damages. Those benefits are important: the optimal amount of carbon emissions anywhere in the world in 2018 is not yet zero, because emission-generating economic activity has important benefits. But, alternatives to carbon-based energy are becoming ever cheaper, and the world is becoming richer. As Nordhaus’ model concludes, the world should be moving towards drawing down emissions, even at an economic cost.

What makes the modelling so difficult is that the people involved are many and are diverse. Choosing an optimal carbon tax would have implications for urbanites and villagers in India today; for Bangladeshi children born into dangerous heat a few decades from now; for rich Americans upgrading their car; and for everyone, everywhere a century from now. Some are helped, many are harmed, and the billions upon billions of future victims add up to a lot of ‘marginal social cost’.

Nordhaus’ model, like any optimising IAM, has to balance these diverse costs and benefits for rich and poor people: today, tomorrow, and in the further future. This is done, like any other optimisation problem, with an objective function: a ‘social welfare function’ that adds up costs and benefits (Nordhaus 2014). Researchers building upon Nordhaus have shown that how the social welfare function values future benefits and costs relative to present ones matters. So does how it weighs harms to poorer people against harms to richer people. Still, a consensus has emerged that for a vast range of plausible social objectives, climate policy should be aggressive now and even more aggressive soon. If not, many future people will suffer climate damages.

Nordhaus’ original model, called DICE (Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy), rolled the whole world into one representative economy. IAMs have been criticised for being simple, but simplification is necessary for a model covering 300 years, complex processes, and the whole world’s economic growth (all optimised using 1990s computers). Nordhaus later developed DICE into RICE (Regional Integrated model of Climate and the Economy), a regionally-disaggregated version. India was one of RICE’s regions.

India is even more climate-vulnerable than IAMs realise

In developing a regional IAM, Nordhaus had to incorporate properties of each region. He drew these from empirical literature where available, and also had to make some quantitative assumptions. Over the years, as research has progressed, successive versions of the model have refined its assumptions. Empirical research on climate vulnerability is still ongoing. In fact, only in the past few years have applied micro-econometricians started to turn their identification strategies towards understanding the many effects of rising temperature (Greenstone and Jack 2015, Dell et al. 2014). When Nordhaus started, such estimates were not yet available. Among the lessons of the new econometrics of temperature is that climate damages may be even greater than Nordhaus’ model assumes. If so, decarbonisation would be an even more urgent priority.

India is particularly vulnerable to climate damages. In the international politics of climate change, small island nations are often cited as the big victims of rising temperatures. But India turns out to have a critical challenge of its own: the combination of heat and humidity (Im et al. 2017).

Because our internal chemistry generates heat, the human body needs to cool itself to survive (Sherwood and Huber 2010). When the air temperature is warmer than our skin temperature, the only way our bodies can cool themselves is by sweating: the evaporation of sweat takes away heat. In research on demographic data from 53 developing countries, Mike Geruso and I have recently documented a special effect of heat and humidity on early-life mortality (Geruso and Spears 2018).

The youngest babies are not yet able to regulate their body temperatures: they have been free-riding on their mother’s temperature regulation in the womb, and only develop the ability to control their sweat over the first few weeks of life. As a result, being born into a very hot and humid month is a large, previously under-appreciated threat to neonatal survival. Unsurprisingly, the risks of heat and humidity do not stop at birth. Melissa LoPalo, a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin, has recently used data on the productivity of survey interviewers to show that hot and humid days reduce the labour productivity of people who work outside.

For India, these facts are especially threatening. Some of the hottest days in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa. But when it gets hot in dry climates, human bodies can cool themselves with sweat. The Indian monsoon (and similar phenomena in South- and Southeast Asia) is what generates stretches of days that are both very hot and very humid. Globally, days that are very hot and humid are rare: many of the few such days that happen occur in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. India, and especially the northern plains, are expected to have even more deadly hot and humid days under climate change. So, disadvantaged regions will become even more disadvantaged.

For now, the interaction of heat and humidity is not part of Nordhaus’ IAMs. Instead, damage functions reflect ordinary temperature. But there is no conceptual reason that an IAM could not incorporate humidity. Work towards that goal is underway. The upshot will be that India’s climate damages will be even more severe. In the model, the social marginal cost of emissions will increase, and mitigation policy will become an even greater priority.

What if the world does not cooperate?

Nordhaus’ models – both DICE and the regional RICE variant – are designed to solve for a single, global pattern of optimal carbon taxes. There was a time when policymakers might have hoped that the world would come together for just such a collaborative, ideal solution. But, these days, international climate cooperation feels politically remote.

Since 2015, the Paris Agreement has recognised the bottom-up nature of climate policy, rooted in domestic politics. Many observers now worry that the Paris pledges are insufficiently ambitious, inadequately implemented, or both. India could not stop climate change even by fully eliminating its emissions, and yet is highly vulnerable to changing temperature. For India, which must formulate its best response to the climate injustice of the developed world, understanding what to do in a deeply sub-optimal world is critical.

In their original form, DICE and RICE do not speak to bottom-up climate policy. But one power of IAMs is that they offer a common framework. Researchers can change it. Current research – such as by Princeton’s Climate Futures Initiative and others – is investigating what sort of equilibrium might emerge from bottom-up climate policy. One particularly important modification to IAMs is to incorporate co-benefits: benefits to today’s populations from reducing emissions. In India, one important co-benefit of reducing coal-burning would be reducing air pollution, by limiting the emissions of compounds that turn into hazardous particle pollution. Adding co-benefits to the balancing of costs and benefits in IAMs may bring optimal policy closer to the decision that the world would ideally make if it acted together.

A recurring theme of this research is that India is a region with much to gain from global climate mitigation policy, on the one hand, and from domestically cleaning up its own air, on the other hand. In Nordhaus’ presidential address to the American Economic Association, he quantitatively implemented an idea that had been proposed in the climate policy literature by others, including Scott Barrett. Nordhaus investigated using international trade policy to reward and punish ‘clubs’ of countries who do their fair share of emissions reductions. Trade policy could be used as a sanction to persuade countries to comply with international climate policy norms. In Nordhaus’ simulation, India consistently came out as one of the countries with the most to gain from climate cooperation. The implication is clear: India has a lot at stake in global climate policy, and in the politics of a best response to climate injustice.

You can use Nordhaus’ toolbox

Nordhaus’ particular IAMs are far from the last word on climate policy. They are valuable because they are a toolbox that anyone can download, modify, and use to investigate their own version of Nordhaus’ questions.

A few years ago, I collaborated with a research team that noticed something odd about the assumptions in Nordhaus’ model. RICE assumed that ‘total factor productivity’ (known to macroeconomists as the mysterious ultimate driver of economic growth) would rapidly increase and converge towards the rich countries, even in the world’s poorest economies. RICE also was using population projections that missed the fact that sub-Saharan Africa’s demographic transition is going slower than demographers once expected.

Anyone would hope that socioeconomic development in Africa, India, and the rest of the developing world happens quickly – but what if it does not? Then the future developing world would be poorer than Nordhaus was assuming, and climate damages would be impacting an already-more-disadvantaged, vulnerable population. We took Nordhaus’ model, tweaked the assumptions, and computed the consequences for optimal climate policy. The result (Budolfson et al. 2018) confirmed our worry that RICE’s recommendation might be too optimistic about economic development. If we can expect climate change to harm many poor people, then we should do even more to prevent it now than RICE originally recommended.

One of Nordhaus’ contributions was to put his model on the internet. You can download it, too, and investigate your own version. Many Nobel prizes have been given for work that was done and over with long ago. Nordhaus’ prize, for providing tools to understand climate policy, is for critical but unfinished work in progress.

Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI) data is available!

Fri, 14 Sep 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Starting in 2016, we began Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI), a mobile phone survey collecting data from representative samples of adults in various states across India on people’s attitudes towards social issues such as reservations, intercaste and interreligious marriage, women working outside of the home, untouchability, ghunghat, and much more. SARI also asked about prejudice towards marginalized communities like Dalits and Muslims, and asked Dalits and Muslims about their experiences of discrimination.

Countries all over the world track social attitudes through periodic, representative surveys to understand societal values and how they are changing over time. India’s diversity and strict hierarchical norms often collide in inhibiting India’s human development. We have written articles news pieces in the past months with SARI data (see a partial list here). We hope that others will use the data to write more widely, and contribute to important policy conversations.

SARI data from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Mumbai, and Rajasthan are now publicly available on our website (here), along with detailed documentation (here). Please take a look!

Paper on child height published in EPW

Tue, 07 Aug 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Please check out the Research page to read Dean and my new paper on child height using the NFHS-4 data. It was just published in the journal Economic & Political Weekly on August 4th. We discuss the improvements in child height in the last 10 years, compare changes in India to other countries, and try to understand how the factors that influence child height have changed.

Child height in India: Facts and Interpretations from the NFHS-4, 2015-16

Tue, 07 Aug 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Diane Coffey, Dean Spears

Published in: Economic and Political Weekly

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Abstract:

An analysis of child height-for-age using the newly released data from the National Family Health Survey-4 indicates that the average child height increased by about four-tenths of a height-for-age standard deviation between 2005 and 2015.

Although important, this increase is small relative to India’s overall height deficit, and relative to economic progress; children in India remain among the shortest in the world. It is unsurprising that the increase in height-for-age has been modest because none of the principal factors responsible for India’s poor child height outcomes have substantially improved over the last decade. Familiar patterns of regional, sex, and caste disadvantage are reflected in child height in 2015.

Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI) - Data

Thu, 02 Aug 2018 00:00:00 GMT

We are glad you are interested in the Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI) data! Before downloading the data, please share your name, email address, occupation, and institution. This will allow us to email you with future updates about new data, and will also give us an understanding of how the data are being used. We will not share your contact information with others. You can find more information about the SARI data on the SARI documentation page. Finally, if you publish a paper, report, or article with the SARI data, please let us know, we would love to hear from you!

To download the SARI data, please fill out the below form and then you can follow the link to download the data.

Download Sari Data (1.87 MB zip file)

Can more education reduce opposition to intermarriage? Comparing India and the US

Thu, 02 Aug 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Author: Payal Hathi

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Abstract:

Intermarriage between races or castes is often used as a measure of average, population-level social tolerance. It is commonly assumed that increases in education will make a society more tolerant.

General Social Survey (GSS) data between 1990 and 2016 show a dramatic rise in acceptance by whites of intermarriage with blacks in the US. In contrast, the Social Attitudes Research India (SARI) survey shows widespread opposition by non-low-caste individuals of intermarriage with low-caste individuals in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh in 2016.

Multivariate regression results show that in both the US and India, greater education is associated with less opposition to intermarriage, even after controlling for relevant covariates, but effect sizes are small.

Further analysis reveals that despite cross-sectional trends, improvements in education were not the major driver of liberalizing racial attitudes on intermarriage in the US, and are not likely to reduce future opposition to intercaste marriage substantially in India.

Swachh Bharat Mission Grameen releases a commendable ad to promote twin pit latrines!

Mon, 02 Jul 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The Swacch Bharat Mission Grameen recently launched an advertisement campaign video with Hindi movie stars Bhumi Pednekar and Akshay Kumar.

In the video the actors educate viewers about how twin pit latrines work. The ad also teaches viewers how the decomposed feces can be used for greater farming benefits and prosperity. An important feature of the ad which distinctly stands out is that Akshay Kumar touches the decomposed feces with his own hands.

We know from years of field research that misplaced beliefs and untouchability-related barriers around handling of feces is one important reason why such a high fraction of the Indian population still defecates in the open. The message of this advertisement is therefore really important, and its makers should be commended.

For the readers who don’t understand Hindi, here is a translation of the dialogues from the video.

Mishra [M]: [In an astonished tone] So many varieties of flowers and fruits…this is incredible!

Akshay Kumar [AK]: It’s all because of the latrine

Mishra. M: [surprised and with a disgusted look on his face] LATRINE?

Bhumi Pednekar [BP]: [disapproving of Mishra’s tone and disgusted face] Yes, the latrine..and that also with two pits.

BP: I had made it clear to him at the time of our marriage, seven years ago, that if there is no toilet in the house then I wouldn’t marry him.

AK: And what did I say then? If I get a toilet, it must be one with the twin pits.

M: [surprised] Two pits…why?

AK: One pit will get filled in five years with regular use. After that, start using the other pit by changing the lever.

M: What is the need to do all this…why not empty the filled pit itself and then start using again? They are just feces.

AK: These are not just feces…these are gold!

M: [Disgusted facial gesture] chhee chhee (eww)

AK: If this pit is closed and left for a year…this will turn into gold.

BP: [with a tray of decomposed feces] That is, sonkhaad (gold in the form of manure).

AK: [lifts the decomposed feces by his hands from the tray] Spread this sonkhad in your field and then experience the blessings of the latrine.

M [convinced and excited] Even I am going to build a latrine with two pits.

BP: [handing Mishra a tray full of fruits and vegetables] Give this to your wife as gift from us.

AK: This is a gift from the land, Mishra.

AK and BP [together]: The best latrine is one that has two pits.

Hunger and health: Royal Economic Society video highlights prize-winning r.i.c.e. research

Wed, 30 May 2018 00:00:00 GMT

In last few decades, India has seen a declining household per capita average calorie consumption. This throws a puzzle, as over the same time people in India have gotten richer. Dean and Josephine investigate how India’s improving disease environment can explain part of the calorie decline. Their research matches data on infant mortality rates (IMR) and open defecation with survey data on per capita calorie consumption.

They find that between 1988 and 2004-05, districts that had a larger decline in IMR saw a larger decline in household per capita calorie consumption. Also, those households that live in villages where more of their neighbours defecate in open are also the ones that eat more calories on average.

An implication of this research is that as more households use toilets, then the food that government provides to them can be used more efficiently and there could even be cost savings. Not only will children be healthier and more likely to survive, they will also have better nutritional outcomes. Additionally, the money that the government spends on food subsidies can also be put to better use. Access this article here

SC/ST Act Is Like An Umbrella, It Ensures We Are Safe, Say Mirchpur Dalits | Niha Masih | Hindustan Times

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

In this article, author Niha Masih, describes the atrocities Dalits have suffered at the hands of the upper castes and the relief that the Scheduled Caste and Tribal Act (SC/ST Act) has provided. The effectiveness of the Act is threatened by a recent Supreme Court order that put checks on arrests under the Act. Widespread protests have been called. The article includes a table with information from a recent article, "Explicit Prejudice: Evidence from a New Survey"--Diane Coffey, Payal Hathi and Amit Thorat, EPW, January, 2016. Read more...

Dean talks to the Institute of Development Studies on what motivated 'Where India Goes?'

Sun, 15 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

In this short interview, Dean talks to the IDS about what motivated him and Diane to write their book “Where India Goes: Abandoned toilets, stunted development, and the cost of caste.” While the book addresses the puzzle of widespread open defecation in rural India, originally, they were interested in a different puzzle- the puzzle concerning child health and well-being in India. The statistical data, for example, revealed that India had a higher neonatal mortality and shorter children compared to many other developing countries with lower per capita incomes. In their effort to learn about child health they stumbled at the puzzle of open defecation in rural India.

There is a number of things that make situation tough for children in India. The lower status of women, for instance, means that young mothers do not eat a lot which shows in the health of their babies. Another important reason for this is sanitation and disease environment. India is a place with a very high density of population on one hand and a lot of open defecation on the other hand. Together, they create an environment, especially in rural parts of the northern states, where an awful lot of children are exposed to their neighbor’s open defection and their germs.

Where India goes is, in part, an attempt to share what they learned about open defecation and how important it is for children’s health and development, and for the population that they grow into. There is another important motivation for writing it: to share what they learned about why there is open defecation in rural India. The ideas of purity and pollution in the caste system and how people think about latrine pits filling up and needing to be emptied influence people's behavior on the use of pit latrines that many are happy to use in other developing countries.

Neighborhood sanitation graph is AEA's chart of the week

Mon, 09 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The American Economic Association is featuring a graph from Mike and Dean's paper "Neighborhood Sanitation and Infant Mortality" as their chart of the week: see it here!

Outdoor air pollution in rural India

Mon, 02 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Nikhil Srivastav, Sangita Vyas

Working Paper

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Abstract:

Exposure to air pollution has important consequences for public health. In January 2017, we visited Reusa, a block in Uttar Pradesh, to investigate pollution-generating activities and the policies that aim to mitigate them in rural areas.

We found many sources of outdoor pollution in Reusa, including burning biomass for cooking and heat, crop-burning, and rural industry and electricity generation. Some of these pollution-generating activities have not been addressed by policy at all, and the policies that do exist have either not been designed effectively, or are not implemented well.

The findings of this study suggest that people living in rural areas could be exposed to high levels of ambient air pollution. To better understand the threat posed by ambient pollution in rural India, and ultimately to better address it, more research on human exposure and ground-level monitoring in rural areas is urgently needed.

"Policy advice is not just a question of evidence and values, it also requires thinking politically."

Fri, 30 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Ashok Kotwal interviews Jean Drèze in Ideas for India.

r.i.c.e. research in Scroll article on support for breastfeeding

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Earlier this month, Scroll published this article calling for more support for women to help them successfully breastfeed their babies. This support includes not only compensation and time off of work, but also assistance in order to get adequate nutrition in pregnancy and after child birth.

It is very exciting to see r.i.c.e.’s research on maternal nutrition and India’s maternity entitlements program mentioned in the article, referred to as commonly known fact. For example, the article says that “Forty-two percent of Indian women are underweight during pregnancy,” a finding from Diane’s 2015 paper, Prepregnancy body mass and weight gain during pregnancy in India and sub-Saharan Africa. And in explaining the cash assistance benefit for pregnant women required by the NFSA, it states that “The cash can help them buy nutritional support through pregnancy and lactation.” This is a recommendation that Diane and Payal made in their 2016 article, Underweight and Pregnant: Designing Universal Maternity Entitlements to Improve Health, which suggests improvements in the structure of the NFSA’s maternity entitlement to address poor maternal nutrition.

The Scroll article also highlights how the 2016/17 national expansion of the maternity entitlements program actually promises less to pregnant women by adding on new restrictions. It is good to see this important issue getting coverage - there is no doubt that more conversation is needed to push for universal access to services that support mothers in taking care of themselves and their children in the critical months during pregnancy and after birth.

The Challenge of Breastfeeding Sensitisation | Nikhil Srivastav | Engage

Fri, 09 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Mothers' Absolute Affection, the nationwide programme to improve breastfeeding, attempts to achieve the same by incentivising frontline health workers to create awareness on the issue. However, a pilot study shows that hiring breastfeeding consultants at the district hospital level is not only more economically feasible, but also results in improved breastfeeding rates. Author Nikhil Srivastav of r.i.c.e. writes about the importance and necessity of hiring dedicated breastfeeding and newborn care consultants at each district hospital. Read more...

When Women Stopped Eating Leftovers | Himanshi Dhawan | The Times of India

Fri, 09 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The Freedom From Hunger Project, conducted between 2015 and 2017, found that women and adolescent girls are most affected by food scarcity in India. Not only do they eat less, but they also eat leftovers which lack the nutrients required for physical growth and mental development. The idea promoted by NGO's Vaagdhara and Pradhan that women should eat the same food together with the family broke many conventions.

The findings of Diane Coffey of r.i.c.e. that women who ate last are more likely to be underweight and give birth to low birth weight babies who are more likely to die in the first months of life are quoted in the article. Read more...

Breastfeeding promotion in EPW Engage

Wed, 07 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Check out Nikhil’s article in EPW Engage in which he explores the government’s current pilot program (Mother’s Absolute Affection, or MAA) to improve breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is known to help children survive, providing vital nutrition and protection from disease. Nikhil argues that the current funding allocation and design of the MAA program is unlikely to incentivize frontline health workers to carry out the critical task of breastfeeding sensitization.

Through his work on a small pilot project to encourage first time mothers to initiate breastfeeding early and to continue exclusive breastfeeding in a government hospital in UP, Nikhil describes how effective one on one counseling can be:

Of the 1,236 women, who were first-time mothers and who were visited by a lactation consultant, 74% did not have a good latch on the first try, causing delays and hardships for breastfeeding. After one counselling session, almost a third of the women were able to correct the position of the child for a good latch, allowing the newborn to feed and encouraging the mother to continue breastfeeding.

The government’s interest in this important issue is laudable. But alongside the MAA program, Nikhil advocates for full-time, dedicated breastfeeding and newborn care consultants at each district hospital across the country. While monetary resources are essential, his recommendation focuses on the close attention that must be paid to the critical work of breastfeeding and newborn care in order to make meaningful headway in improving the lives of many of India’s children.

See the full article here.

Can Sanitation Reduce Stunting? | Priyanka Pulla | The Hindu

Tue, 20 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

In this comment, the author, Priyanka Pulla, describes the multiple difficulties involved when studying the impact of sanitation on stunting. The author cites the views of Dean Spears, economist with rice and the University of Texas, concerning the reasons why recent trials, which implemented water, sanitation and hygiene interventions in Bangladeshi and Kenyan villages were not successful at thwarting childhood stunting. Read more...

Tools for designing a credible survey of open defecation

Thu, 08 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

This note summarizes r.i.c.e.’s recommendations for how to design and implement a household survey measuring open defecation. We have already shared these recommendations on prior occasions, including in meetings with government officials and multilateral agencies, in articles in the media, and in academic forums. We summarize our recommendations here for the meeting of the Expert Working Group for the National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS).

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Meet the People Who are Still "Untouchables" After All These Years | Amrit Dhillon | The Sydney Morning Hearld

Mon, 05 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The belief that caste bigotry is lower in Indian cities is widely-held among Indians. So is the belief that caste discrimination has been reduced since a law passed in 1955 made caste discrimination a crime.

But a new survey, Social Attitudes Research for India, conducted by r.i.c.e., UT-Austin, and JNU in New Delhi, published in January has a nasty surprise: it showed that 75% of those surveyed in rural Rajasthan and 48% of all respondents in rural Uttar Pradesh still practice untouchability. Two of the survey's authors, Amit Thorat and Diane Coffey, are quoted in the article. Read more...

Measuring open defecation in India: evidence from a randomized survey experiment

Mon, 29 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

This Policy Brief seeks to inform researchers and practitioners on best practices for measuring open defecation in a large population survey. We summarize results from "Measuring open defecation in India using survey questions: evidence from a randomized survey experiment" publsished in BMJ Open.

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Where India Goes makes The Hindu's Top 10 list!

Fri, 26 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The Hindu recently compiled its list of top ten non-fiction books of 2017, and Dean and Diane's Where India Goes made the list! They write:

Coffey and Spears have come out with a deeply researched and thoughtfully written book about open defecation, the role of caste, and the challenges of implementing policy interventions at this scale. They explain why Indian children are stunted, pointing out that poor nutrition is not the only reason.

See the full list here.

SARI in the news!

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

We are excited that SARI findings on explicit prejudice, published in EPW last week, have received the following media coverage to date:

Seema Chishti's front page article in the Indian Express - see here
Scroll's coverage - see here
NewsClick's interview with Amit Thorat - see here
Kaushik Basu's tweet - see here
Hindi coverage in Aaj Tak - see here

Explicit prejudice: Evidence from a new survey of social attitudes

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

IIT, Ambedkar University, JNU Diane Coffey will be presenting findings from ‘Measuring Explicit Prejudice: Findings from Social Attitudes Research, India’, a paper that uses data from a new phone survey on social attitudes, discrimination, and prejudice. Several presentations are planned, as below - please join us as we discuss! -October 10th at the Humanities & Social Sciences Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. -October 11th at the School of Liberal Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi. -November 3rd at the Center for the Study of Regional Development, Jawahal Lal Nehru University, Delhi.

Disapproval of women working outside the home

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

This graph uses SARI data to show that about half of adults in Delhi, Mumbai, urban Rajasthan, rural Rajasthan, urban Uttar Pradesh, and rural Uttar Pradesh say that married women whose husbands earn a good living should not work outside the home. There are no data for women in Mumbai because SARI interviewed only men in Mumbai. In most regions, there are no statistically significant differences in the percent of men and women who say that women should not work outside the home, but differences between men’s disapproval and women’s disapproval are somewhat more pronounced in urban areas than in rural areas.

For comparison, we plot, as a time-series, the proportion of adults (men and women, 18+) in the United States who said that they “disapprove” when the General Social Survey (GSS) asked them if they approve or disapprove of a married woman earning money in business or industry if her husband is able to support her. SARI’s question was intentionally worded for comparison with this question, which was asked of GSS respondents between 1972 and 1998. With the exception of female respondents living in Delhi, SARI respondents’ disapproval for women’s work in each region of India is higher than what it was in the United States 45 years ago.

This graph was published in "Explicit Prejudice: Evidence from a New Survey" in EPW.

Women reporting that men eat first

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

This graph uses SARI data to show the fraction of women who report that men in their household eat before women in their household, a discriminatory practice that emphasizes women’s unequal social position and has negative health consequences. The results range from almost 60% of women in rural Uttar Pradesh to about a third of women in Delhi.

In 2011, the IHDS first quantified this behavior by asking women: When your family eats lunch or dinner, do the women usually eat with the men? Or do the women usually eat first? Or do the men usually eat first? SARI asked respondents the same question in 2016. There was no discernable improvement in the prevalence of this practice between the two surveys, done five years apart. In fact, in Delhi, SARI found a higher percent of women reporting eating last than was found in the IHDS in 2011. We do not think that the percent of women in Delhi experiencing this discriminatory practice has actually gone up; rather we suspect that respondents may have been more comfortable admitting to this practice on the phone rather than in person. This is, however, just a hypothesis; it would be useful for future research to explore differences in reporting prejudice and discrimination across survey modes.

This graph was published in “Explicit Prejudice: Evidence from a New Survey” in EPW.

Support for laws against intermarriage

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Because within-caste marriage is so important for preserving caste distinctions, and because intergroup marriage is seen as threatening to dominant groups in many societies worldwide, SARI asked non-Dalits the question: In your opinion, should there be a law preventing high caste and low caste people from marrying each other?

This graphs shows that the proportion of non-Dalit adults who support such a law ranges from 60% in rural Rajasthan to about 40% in Delhi. Data for Mumbai are not shown here because estimates for this graph pool men and women and only men were interviewed in Mumbai.

This graph also shows responses to a similar question asked of white adults in the United States between 1972 and 2002: Do you think there should be laws against marriages between blacks and whites? The comparison is striking. In each place in India, support for laws against intermarriage is higher than it was in the US 45 years ago. However, support for laws against intermarriage in the US was nevertheless quite high until recently: only 30 years ago did support for laws banning interracial marriage fall to less than one fifth of the white population.

This graph was published in “Explicit Prejudice: Evidence from a New Survey” in EPW.

Explicit prejudice: Evidence from a new survey of social attitudes

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

In this presentation by Diane Coffey at Ambedkar University, Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI) survey data shows high levels of explicit prejudice against both women and Dalits in Delhi, Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan.

Marital Rape: Married, Married but Separated, and Unmarried--Classifying Rape Victims is Unconstitutional: Petitioners Submit Before Delhi HC | Akanksha Jain | LiveLaw In

Mon, 22 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The Indian government has filed papers in the High Court in Delhi arguing against criminalizing marital rape and stating that doing so would destabilize the institution of marriage.

The petitioners in the case have relied on a 2014 study conducted by Aashish Gupta of r.i.c.e. which revealed that most incidents of sexual violence were committed by husbands of the survivors and the number of women who experienced sexual violence by husbands was forty times the number of women who experienced sexual violence by non-intimate perpetrators. Read More...

Untouchability Still High in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, Finds Survey | Scroll Staff | Scroll.in

Wed, 17 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The survey is based on interviews with 8,065 people in Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in 2016. Nearly two-thirds of of the population in rural Rajasthan and rural Uttar Pradesh still practice untouchability, a survey by Social Attitudes Research, India, or SARI, has found. Almost half of the population in these regions is opposed to marriage between Dalits and non-Dalit Hindus.

The findings of the survey were published in a paper authored by Diane Coffey, Payal Hathi, Nidhi Khurana and Amit Thorat of r.i.c.e. on January 6 in the Economic and Political Weekly. Read more...

We Are Prejudiced Against Women and Dalits in Varying Degrees--A New Study | P.G. Ambedkar | Newsclick

Wed, 17 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

While many think that untouchability and the practice of Ghunghat are things of the past, the reality is different.

A study to understand social prejudices against women and Dalits in India was published recently in the Economics and Political Weekly (EPW). This study explored explicit prejudice, "beliefs and behaviours to which people openly and readily admit that reinforce the lower status of people in oppressed groups." This study was conducted by Diane Coffey, Payal Hathi, Nidhi Khurana, and Amit Thorat of r.i.c.e. using data collected by telephonic survey of 8,065 individuals in Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Read more...

Prejudiced populace| Millennium Post

Tue, 16 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

An article in Millennium post talks about some of the findings of our recently published paper "Explicit Prejudice" in Economic and Poiltical Weekly.

The article mentions about the prejudiced attitudes related to women working outside, when women get to eat, practice of 'ghunghat', inter-caste marriages and practice of untouchability against dalits.

Read this article by Aditya Aamir here.

Understanding Prejudice: The Skewed Way Indians Still Think About Gender and Caste | Jahnavi Sen | The Wire

Tue, 16 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

How much has Indian society really changed after independence? What are the prejudices that still exist, and who are they directed against?

New research, published last week in the "Economic and Political Weekly," has a scary but not surprising answer to this question. In an article titled, "Explicit Prejudice: Evidence from a New Survey", Diane Coffey , Payal Hathi, Nidhi Khourana, and Amit Thorat show just how much people hold on to certain prejudicial attitudes, particularly against Dalits and women. Read more...

Untouchability High in Urban UP and Rajasthan, even Delhi: A Survey | Seema Chishti | The Indian Express

Tue, 16 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

According to the 2016 survey, entitled,"Social Attitudes Research, India", conducted by Diane Coffey of the University of Texas at Austin and RICE, Payal Hathi and Nidhi Khourana of RICE,and Amit Thorat of the School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, 50% of the respondents in urban Rajasthan admitted to practicing untouchability as did 48% of respondents in urban UP and even 39% in Delhi.

On Dalits and non-Dalit Hindus and inter-marriages, the range of responses, according to the survey, vary between 60% in rural Rajasthan and 40% in UP being opposed to inter-caste marriages. The respondents also favoured a law which would prohibit inter-caste marriages. Read More...

SARI Paper in EPW!

Mon, 15 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Our new paper 'Explicit Prejudice: Evidence from a New Survey' was published in Economic and Political Weekly on 6th January, 2018. The paper uses data from the newly done phone survey by r.i.c.e. called Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI).

It studies explicit prejudice against women and Dalits in Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. We find high levels of explicit prejudice against both Dalits and women in all the places where our phone survey has been conducted so far. The paper also discusses the need for more active public discourse to challenge the practices of caste and gender based discrimination in India.

Access the article from EPW’s website here, or download it from our research page.

Untouchability rampant in Rural Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh; Delhi not far behind

Sat, 13 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

This news piece published in Aaj Tak highlights some of the findings from a recently published article in Economic and Political Weekly, “Explicit Prejudice—Evidence from a New Survey” by Diane Coffey, Payal Hathi, Nidhi Khurana and Amit Thorat.

A summary of the piece: Even after a long history of social movements to eliminate untouchability, it continues to be a social evil in the 21st century. A recent survey by researchers from r.i.c.e, University of Texas at Austin and Jawaharlal Nehru University find that about two-thirds of people in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan still practice it. There still exists strong opposition by a significant fraction of the population to inter-caste marriage between Dalits and Non-Dalit Hindus (about 60 and 40 percent of rural population in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, respectively). Not only do people oppose inter-caste marriage, they also want a law in place that bans it. The survey also found that women play a bigger role in the continuation of this illegal practice. Further, it was also found that the practice of untouchability is rampant not only in the rural areas but in the urban areas as well (50, 48 and 39 percent in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, respectively).

The Social Attitudes Research for India (SARI) survey is a phone based survey that covered 8065 respondents in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Mumbai with an objective of understanding people’s discriminatory attitudes towards Dalits and women. When asked about women’s social status, a large fraction of respondents was not in favor of women working outside of their homes. This clearly shows that women working outside are still frowned upon. Read more...

Aadhaar, biometrics, and the PDS in Jharkhand

Fri, 12 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Check my new article on ideas for India website. The Public Distribution System plays an important role in the lives of poor people in Jharkhand. They tend to keep their ration cards safely, go to the ration shop every month without fail, and get angry when the local PDS dealer cheats them. The reason is not difficult to understand: in their fragile and uncertain lives, the PDS provides a modicum of food and economic security.

Aadhaar-based biometric authentication (ABBA) is now compulsory for most users of the public distribution system in Jharkhand. In this paper, I argue that "the success of ABBA depends on the simultaneous functioning of undependable technologies such as the PoS machine, remote Aadhaar servers, fingerprint recognition devices, and internet connectivity.The analysis of digital records, along with independent survey data, provides us with some important insights on the impact of the new system on the PDS in Jharkhand, and it’s only in the combination of digital records and the survey data, such as Drèze et. al. (2017, paper ), that a clearer picture emerges. Even in Ranchi district, a relatively ‘favourable environment’ for these technologies to function, the failure rates are considerable. This raises serious questions about the appropriateness of this technology for the PDS, especially in areas like rural Jharkhand."

When You Are a Casteist and You Know It: A Survey | Diane Coffey, Payal Hathi, Nidhi Khurana and Amit Thorat | Engage

Fri, 12 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

This article highlights some of the data discussed in, "Explicit Prejudice--Evidence From a New Survey, by Diane Coffey, Payal Hathi, Nidhi Khurana and Amit Thorat in the 06 Jan, 2018 issue of Economic and Political Weekly.

A 2016 survey by Social Attitudes Research India (SARI) documents just how prevalent prejudice and caste-based discrimination is in India and how many people do not see anything wrong with saying that they practice untouchability. Read more...

India's new DHS (NFHS-4) is out!

Thu, 11 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The hard-working folks at the Demographic and Health Surveys and the International Institute of Population Sciences, Mumbai have the perfect new year gift for researchers in India: the new round of the India's DHS, also called NFHS - 4 (2015-16).

You can download the dataset from the measure DHS website after registering yourself (its free!): https://dhsprogram.com/what-we-do/survey/survey-display-355.cfm

The national report is available for download too: http://rchiips.org/NFHS/NFHS-4Report.shtml

State reports are trickling in, but state and district fact-sheets have been available for sometime: http://rchiips.org/NFHS/factsheet\_NFHS-4.shtml or https://dhsprogram.com/publications/publication-FR338-DHS-Final-Reports.cfm

Like many others, all of us at r.i.c.e. have been waiting for the new round of NFHS. The last DHS was 2005-06, so this DHS comes after a ten year drought of good nationally representative health data. I am really looking forward to all the papers and the analysis based on the NFHS-4.

Here's wishing good luck to all the researchers, journalists, public health activists, and others as they spend time analyzing the data, writing papers and articles, and contributing to improvements in health in India. May the force be with you.

A Lose-Lose Proposition | Payal Hathi | The Indian Express

Thu, 11 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Patriarchal attitudes in India limiting women's work hurt both the economy and society. In this article, author Payal Hathi looks at the reasons for low women's participation in the Indian labour force and proposes workable steps that can be taken to counter the prevalent conservative patriarchal attitudes. Read More...

Aadhaar, Biometrics, and the PDS in Jharkhand | Nazar Khalid | Ideas for India

Thu, 11 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Aadhaar-based biometric authentication was made mandatory for obtaining rations under the Public Distribution System in Ranchi district in Jharkhand in August 2016. In this article, Nazar Khalid demonstrates that even a year later, a significant fraction of cardholders is still unable to buy their foodgrain rations.

The stigma around women's work

Wed, 10 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Payal's op-ed on women's work was published in the Indian Express today. She uses SARI data to explore social disapproval of women working outside the home, and how patriarchal attitudes contribute to India's low female labor participation rate.

Data reported in the article are presented in the graph below (which could not be printed in the article). See the piece here.

Despite Improvements in Child Health, Why Do So Many Newborns Still Die? | Diane Coffey | Ideas For India

Thu, 04 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The ‘Million Death Study’ shows that the death rate of under-five children in India dropped from about 90 per 1,000 to about 47 during 2000-2015. However, improvements in death rates in the first month of life have been slow, and deaths from low birthweight remained largely unchanged. In this article, Diane Coffey elaborates on these findings and recommends stronger efforts to understand and improve the health of pregnant women. Read More...

Social disadvantage and mental health: A developing country perspective

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Authors: Aashish Gupta, Diane Coffey

Published in: Population Association of America 2018 Annual Meeting

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Abstract:

Studies from the United States document important racial gaps in health. In developing societies, research on social disadvantage and health is more limited. Mental health, in particular, is poorly understood relative to its disease burden.

Our study contributes the first population-level analysis of mental health disparities in India, where the two marginalized groups that we study constitute a population larger than that of the United States.

Applying two complementary empirical strategies to data on 10,125 adults interviewed by the WHO SAGE, we document and decompose gaps in mental health between the dominant social group (higher caste Hindus) and two marginalized social groups (Scheduled Castes and Muslims). We find that differences in socioeconomic status cannot fully explain the large disparities in mental health that we document, for either marginalized group. Our results highlight the need for policies that move beyond redistribution to reduce violence and discrimination.

A Cultural View of Sanitation | Abhay Rao | Stanford Social Innovation Review

Wed, 06 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMT

This review by Abhay Rao of "Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste" by Diane Coffey and Dean Spears highlights their examination of the role of caste identities and notions of ritual purity in explaining high rates of open defecation in India. Rao concludes that, "this book offers a fresh and compelling perspective that should interest not just policy makers and practioners in sanitation, but also those working in maternal and child health, and education, and other fields affected by the issue." Read More...

A Small Tribute to Uwe Reinhardt

Sat, 25 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

I was greatly saddened to hear about Uwe Reinhardt’s passing on Monday, November 13, 2017. For those who may not be familiar with him, Uwe was the James Madison Professor of Political Economy and professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. To say the least, he was a well-known health economist who -- for decades -- was active in health care policy in the U.S. and abroad (e.g., Uwe and his wife, May, helped to advise the Taiwanese government for at least 10 years). If you search “Uwe Reinhardt” on the internet, you will find innumerable articles remembering and honoring Uwe.

I wanted to share a personal note about Uwe. Between 2011 and 2014, I had the good fortune of being Uwe’s Teaching Assistant on several occasions, and out of his great compassion, Uwe agreed to be on my dissertation committee. Some of the student offices (where Mike Geruso, John Papp, Dean Spears, and I sat for a few years) were located across the hall from Uwe's office. To all who are thinking about graduate school, I sincerely hope that you will find a mentor like Uwe, and here are a few attributes to look out for:

(1) Uwe was a scholar who understood, and strove to understand, how the world works in practice. This is no small feat for someone who chooses to focus on health care. For example, take hospital pricing: the first time that I heard of a hospital chargemaster was in Uwe’s health economics class. I recommend his 2006 Health Affairs article, “The Pricing Of U.S. Hospital Services: Chaos Behind A Veil Of Secrecy.” See also his 2003 co-authored article, “It’s the Prices, Stupid: Why The United States Is So Different From Other Countries,” which has more than 500 citations on Google Scholar and was highlighted in a tweet from Sarah Kliff of Vox.com:

(2) Uwe was a teacher who made you laugh so hard during lecture that you felt like you just had a Pilates class rather than Introductory Microeconomics.

(a) One of Uwe’s classic lectures was his illustration of Supply and Demand with the Chinese Marriage Market. A screenshot of the first slide is shown below, and the presentation continues for another 26 slides.

(b) Another Reinhardt special:

(3) Uwe was a mentor who genuinely cared for his students and community. This statement sounds cliché, but I cannot express how much it meant to a struggling graduate student when one of her advisers stopped by her windowless office to chat about his latest trip to Taiwan -- where he had just made recommendations to top officials on how to improve the National Health Insurance program – and shared a box of taro cakes.

For those of us who are lucky enough to have Uwes in our lives, I think that we cannot hope to repay their kindness and generosity. Instead, we can try to pay it forward to the next generation, and I think that Uwe would be proud.

India's Unique Enigma of High Growth and Stunted Children | Awanish Kumar | The Wire

Tue, 21 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

In this discussion of the new book, "Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste," by r.i.c.e. co-founders, Diane Coffey and Dean Spears, the author of the article, Awanish Kumar calls the book "a path breaking addition to the literature on child nutrition and development policy." The article provides highlights from the book, as well as Mr. Kumar's own thoughts on why the Indian government does not possess the willingness to take the issues of open defecation or such severe levels of child malnutrition head on. Read More...

Labelling Versus Outcomes: On Swachh Bharat Mission | Nikhil Srivastav | The Hindu

Tue, 21 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

In this article, r.i.c.e. reseacher Nikhil Srivastav asserts that independent studies on the Swachh Bharat Mission don't confirm government claims of the success of its efforts to make India open defecation free. He cites flaws in the structure of government survey questions that cause inaccurate estimates of latrine use. Read More...

Wasting Our Children | Rahul Jacob | Business Standard

Tue, 21 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Writing about how caste system-based medieval notions of purity and cleanliness are impeding progress toward eliminating the practice of open defecation in rural India, author Rahul Jacob observes that the likelihood of the average Indian falling sick due to unsafe water and poor sanitation is 40 times higher in India than in China. To understand why, he recommends reading a "startling and surprisingly readable new book, 'Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste.'" "It is one of the most admirable and important books I have ever read." Read More...

Review: Where India Goes by Diane Coffey and Dean Spears | Sudhirendar Sharma | Hindustan Times

Mon, 20 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

In this review of 'Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste, author Sudhirendar Sharma states, "A well-researched book points out that Swachh Bharat will remain a work in progress until the cultural sociology of open defecation is addressed." Read More...

On drones and defecation

Sun, 19 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Hat tip to r.i.c.e. board member Avinash Kishore for noticing this article in the Hindustan Times: "In Telangana’s Karimnagar, police deploy drone to stop open defecation."

Two quotations from the article:

"Ironically, almost all the houses in these colonies have toilets. 'Yet, people were habituated to come out early in the morning for open defecation, despite the hectic campaign about Swachh Bharat in the last two years. So, we thought we could shame them by exposing them through drone camera,' the commissioner said."
"The police want to continue the drone surveillance on the banks of the lake after checking the open defecation. 'We are now focusing on pig-rearers who bring their animals to the reservoir bank and make the waters dirty,' the police commissioner added."

Dr. Sudhirendar Sharma reviewed Where India Goes in today's Hindustan Times

Fri, 10 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

You can read the whole review at this link. Here is a quotation:

"Researchers Diane Coffey and Dean Spears have written a book that is important, timely, and easy to read. It argues that caste is the biggest stumbling block to overcoming open defecation. Drawing heavily on field studies and data analysis, the authors contend that the power of the state over open defecation is limited because it not only lacks the human resources needed for behavioural change but also because the social forces against it are strong."

India Should Be Seen As A Breastfeeding Success Story, But Here's What the Data Hides--Undernourished Mothers, Problematic Cultural Beliefs And Sheer Poverty | Rukmini S | Huffington Post

Fri, 03 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

In India, early initiation of breastfeeding and the practice of nourishing babies exclusively by breastfeeding for the first 6 months are growing. Given the poor health condition of mothers, however, breastfed children can be poorly nourished. Author Rukmini S cites the findings of Diane Coffey that 42.2% of women in India enter pregnancy underweight and they gain only half the recommended weight during pregnancy. A 2005-06 study shows that 20-30% of children under 6 months were undernourished, even though they were breastfed. Read more...

Toilet: Ek Prem Katha: Akshay Kumar Jams With Fans, Spreads Toilet Ka Jugaad Message | Monika Rawal Kukreja | Hindustan Times

Fri, 03 Nov 2017 00:00:00 GMT

A promotional event for the film, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, was held at the 4th season finale of Hindustan Times Friday Jam. The film addresses the issue of open defecation in parts of India. The event featured appearances by stars Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar. Article author Monika Rawal Kukreja noted that special invitees, Dean Spears and Diane Coffey, authors of "Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development and the Costs of Caste" were in attendance. Read More...

Bezwada Wilson on caste, manual scavenging, and the Swachh Bharat Mission

Tue, 31 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

If there is one thing you will read today, let it be this interview of Bezwada Wilson by Vidya Subrahmaniam of The Hindu Center in The Wire. Bezwada Wilson and Vidya Subrahmaniam discuss some of rice's sanitation research, but more importantly, Bezwada Wilson describes the changes he would have liked to see before, or along with the government's 'cleaning frenzy' and 'toilet construction spree', as well as the non-implementation of the 'Prohibition Of Employment As Manual Scavengers And Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013'.

New open access paper with Aashish Gupta in JEEM

Mon, 23 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

My paper with Aashish, "Health externalities of India's expansion of coal plants: Evidence from a national panel of 40,000 households," is now available open access at JEEM at this link. Here's the abstract:

Coal power generation is expanding rapidly in India and other developing countries. In addition to consequences for climate change, present-day health externalities may also substantially increase the social cost of coal. Health consequences of air pollution have proven important in studies of developed countries, but, despite clear importance, similarly well-identified estimates are less available for developing countries, and no estimates exist for the important case of coal in India. We exploit panel data on Indian households, matched to local changes in exposure to coal plants. Increased exposure to coal plants is associated with worse respiratory health. Consistent with a causal mechanism, the effect is specific: no effect is seen on diarrhea or fever, and no effect on respiratory health is seen of new non-coal plants. Our result is not due to endogenous avoidance behavior, or to differential trends in determinants of respiratory health, either before the period studied or simultaneously.

You should also check out Kelsey Jack's overview paper in the same issue on "Environmental economics in developing countries."

Indians Would Live Four Years Longer on Cleaner Air | Sapna Gopal | India Climate Dialogue

Mon, 23 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

In this article, author Sapna Gopal argues that if India reduced its air pollution to comply with the air quality standards of the World Health Organization (WHO), Indians would live about four years longer on average, according to a study published in the PNAS journal. A study authored by r.i.c.e. reseacher Aashish Gupta and r.i.c.e. co-founder Dean Spears showing the worsening of respiratory health in India caused by the use of coal-fired plants is cited. Read More...

Statistically, Nearly All The Sexual Violence Indial Women Experience Is Within The Marriage | Rukmini S | Huffingtom Post

Mon, 23 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

In this article, concerning sexual violence experienced by women in India, author Rukmini S cites data reported by the NFHS 2005-2006 (more recent data on this subject is not available) and analyzed by Aashish Gupta of r.i.c.e. showing that 2.3% of sexual violence reported by women is perpetrated by men other than their husbands, while 97.7% was perpetrated by their husbands. Read More...

What Does Global Hunger Index Ranking Mean For India? Here Is What Must Be Done Fast | The Financial Express

Mon, 23 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

India is ranked 100 out of 119 countries in the Global Hunger Index (GHI). GHI rankings are based on the adequacy of child caloric intake, child wasting (low weight for height), stunting (lower height than typical for age), and under 5 mortality. This article describes the findings of r.i.c.e. co-founder Dean Spears that the ill effects of open defecation extend beyond those who have no access to proper sanitation. Read More...

Caste is Stunting All of India's Children | Diane Coffey and Dean Spears | Foreign Policy

Tue, 17 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Indian workers check newly built toilets in the stockyard of a factory in Morbi, some 230km from Ahmedabad, on November 18, 2016, on the eve of World Toilet Day. World Toilet Day (WTD), held on November 19 each year, is a campaign held around the world to mobilize people over issues surrounding health and sanitation.

Growth in India has always been puzzling. For the first decades of democratic India, economists lamented slow economic progress. Some observers worried that India was condemned to permanently sluggish GDP growth. Luckily, things changed. Rapid growth in the last few decades has taken many Indians out of poverty: According to the World Bank, the fraction of Indians living in poverty was cut in half between 1993 and 2011.

But slow growth of another sort remains a puzzle. These days, what grows too slowly is not India’s economy but its children. When a country gets richer, its children usually get taller. Indian kids remain unhealthily short, even compared with their peers in poorer developing countries. According to the latest figures, a child in India is more likely to be stunted than a child in much poorer areas of sub-Saharan Africa. They’re also dying in greater numbers than India’s level of development should suggest; infant mortality is higher in India than it is in poorer neighbors like Bangladesh and Nepal. Read more...

From Bedroom to Courtroom | Aditi Tandon | The Tribune

Tue, 17 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

The issue of whether to continue the current exception for marital rape that exists under the law in India that criminalizes rape is the subject of widespread debate and a case before the Delhi High Court. In this article, author Aditi Tandon cites information provided by Aashish Gupta of r.i.c.e. showing that in the last 12 months of data collection by NFHS, 157 women out of 100,000 reported being raped by men other than their husbands and 6,590 out of 100,000 reported being raped by their husbands. Read more...

Upcoming book discussion at IIT Delhi!

Mon, 16 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

If you are in Delhi on Oct 25th, please mark your calendars for a book discussion of Where India Goes with IIT Delhi's Ambedkar Study Circle at 2:30pm in LH 308. Dean and I are really looking forward to it!

Indian Government Files Legal Papers to Try to Stop Marital Rape Being Outlawed | Ben Kentish | Independent

Mon, 16 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

In this article, author Ben Kentish discusses the Indian government's position, as filed in legal papers in the Delhi High Court, that marital rape should not be made a crime. The author cites an analysis by r.i.c.e. that found that 98% of rapes of women in India were committed by their husbands. Read more...

Government's Refusal to Criminalize Marital Rape is Unjust, Inconsistent | Roshan Kishore | Live Mint

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

The Indian government has filed legal papers in the Supreme Court arguing against criminalizing marital rape and stating that doing so would destabilize the institution of marriage. Author Roshon Kishore argues against the government position stating that justifying sexual violence by husbands in the name of protecting family values only perpetuates it. He cites a paper by Aashish Gupta of r.i.c.e. which uses NFHS data to show that the overwhelming majority of acts of sexual violence are committed by the victims' husbands. Read more...

An Insightful Article on SBM by Manini Chatterjee in The Telegraph

Mon, 09 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

We wanted to share this interesting article by Manini Chatterjee that came out in The Telegraph today. Manini has talked about how the SBM fails to address the root causes of poor sanitation in India. SBM, as a sanitation campaign, has remained silent on the issue of manual scavenging, and has so far failed to address the links between caste and waste disposal.

She quotes Bezwada Wilson (National convener of Safai Karamchari Andolan) to show how the campaign has failed to solve the bigger challenges that the sanitation problem in India faces at present- "there is an inexorable link between occupation and caste; the occupation of manual scavenging is linked with caste. We have to break the link between caste and occupation before we set out to achieve Swachh Bharat." She also questions the SBM's focus on building toilets without having to say anything about improving the plight of people who do the cleaning jobs.

r.i.c.e. research has found that beliefs, values, and norms about purity and pollution contribute to the ubiquity and social acceptance of open defecation in India. In India, dealing with pit emptying has been linked to a job that lower caste people do. While the SBM is building latrines all over the country, getting people to use them will be difficult because few people are willing to empty their latrine pits themselves.

Manini concludes her article by saying that the SBM must give us pause to see the filth within. That is, if the SBM is to succeed, people need to recognize the role of caste prejudice in shaping sanitation outcomes.

SARI Paper Presentation on October 10 at IIT, Delhi

Thu, 05 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

r.i.c.e. is delighted to share that our execuitive Director, Diane Coffey, will be presenting a paper 'Measuring Explicit Prejudice: Findings from Social Attitudes Research, India' on 10th October at the seminar talks in IIT, Delhi . The paper has been co-authored by Payal Hathi, Nidhi Khurana and Amit Thorat. It uses the data from SARI survey, a phone survey being conduced by r.i.c.e in India.

Please join us for a discussion at the given venue.

Venue, Date and Timings:

The talk will be held at 3.30 PM on TUESDAY, 10 OCTOBER, in the HSS Committee Room, MS 610.

Abstract of the paper:

Measuring explicit prejudice, meaning measuring clearly stated discriminatory attitudes and behaviors, is an important tool for understanding discrimination in a society. This working paper presents results about explicit prejudice against women and Dalits in Delhi, Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan using newly collected mobile phone survey data.

For some of the indicators of explicit prejudice that we study, we compare data from India with data collected in the United States. These comparisons are useful both because of the parallels between casteism in India and racism in the United States and because declining explicit prejudice in the United States provides an opportunity to contextualize research on social attitudes and explicit prejudice more broadly.

For other indicators, we compare the mobile phone survey data with data from the India Human Development Survey, 2011. This comparison allows us to validate the quality of the mobile phone survey data and to note that there has been little change over the past 5 years in the indicators that both surveys measure.

We document high levels of explicit prejudice against both women and Dalits and we reflect on the ways that these new data can enhance our understanding of social progress in India.

Missing the mark Indian officials are humiliating people who defecate outdoors | The Economist

Thu, 05 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

This article, which is critical of practices aimed at humiliating people who defecate outdoors, describes better ways of encouraging people to install and use a latrine. Data collected by r.i.c.e. showing that even when toilets have been built, they are not often used, is cited. Read more...

'Where India Goes' Gives a First-Hand Analysis of India's Poor Early-Life Health and Stunting | Govindan Nair | The Wire

Thu, 05 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

In this review of "Where India Goes", a book by r.i.c.e. founders Diane Coffey and Dean Spears, concerning the causes and catastrophic effects of open defecation practices in rural India, author Govindan Nair declares that the book is, "essential reading not ony for policymakers and development professionals, but for anyone interested in the paradoxes of development in the early 21st century. " Providing complicated analyses for a layperson's understanding along with insights based on personal interactions, in the words of the reviewer. "the book is an engaging and rewarding read." Read more...

Sense and Solidarity: Jholawala Economics for Everyone -- just launched!

Fri, 22 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Congratulations to Jean Drèze on the launch of his new book, Sense and Solidarity: Jholawala Economics for Everyone. The book was just launched in a lovely outdoor ceremony in Ranikhet, Uttarkhand. You can read about on the permanent black publishing website. There are actually two posts about the book, from Sept 21 and Sept 22.

I have learned a lot from reading the articles in this book as they came out over the years and really enjoyed reading the introduction on social development, democracy, research, and action as Jean was working on it. It has some very important words of wisdom and experience for aspiring jholawala economists. You can buy the book here and here. Congratulations, Jean!

***

Jean Drèze has a rare and distinctive understanding of the Indian economy and its relationship with the social life of ordinary people. He has travelled widely in rural India and done fieldwork of a kind that few economists have attempted. This has enabled him to make invaluable contributions not only to public debates on economic and social policy but also to our knowledge of the actual state of the country.

Drèze’s insights on India’s “unfashionable” issues – hunger, poverty, inequality, corruption, and conflict – are all on display here and offer a unique perspective on the evolution of social policy over roughly the past two decades. Historic legislations and initiatives of the period, relating for instance to the right to food and the right to work, are all scrutinised and explained, as are the fierce debates that often accompanied them.

“Jholawala” has become a disparaging term for activists in the business media. This book affirms the learning value of collective action combined with sound economic analysis. In his detailed Introduction, Drèze persuasively argues for an approach to development economics where research and action become inseparably interconnected.

This is a book as much for economists as for every reading citizen.

Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI) - Documentation

Mon, 18 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Social Attitudes Research, India (SARI) is a new phone survey tracking social attitudes over time and experiences of discrimination on the basis of gender, caste, and religion in India. The survey uses random digit dialing to build representative samples of adults across different states and major cities in the country.

Explanations of the variables included in each survey, of various points in each survey that utilized randomization, and questionnaires are below.

Please contact payal@riceinstitute.org if you have any questions.

EXPLANATION OF VARIABLES

EXPLANATION OF RANDOMIZATION

QUESTIONNAIRES

Uttar Pradesh: English and Hindi
Delhi: English and Hindi
Rajasthan: English and Hindi
Mumbai: English and Hindi
Bihar & Jharkhand: English and Hindi
Maharashtra: English and Marathi

VARIABLES BY SAMPLE (ALL YEARS)- DOWNLOAD HERE

DATA - AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD HERE

SARI- Training Manual