Castes and Labor Mobility

We examine the relative fortunes of the historically disadvantaged scheduled castes and tribes (SC/ST) in India in terms of their education attainment, occupation choices, consumption and wages. We study the period 1983-2005 using household survey data from successive rounds of the National Sample Survey. We \u85nd that this period has been characterized by a signi\u85cant convergence of education, occupation distribution, wages and consumption levels of SC/STs to-ward non-SC/ST levels. Using various decomposition approaches we \u85nd that the improvements in education account for a major part of the wage and consumption convergence. JEL Classi\u85cation: J6, R