Download or read book Welfare and Poverty Impacts of India s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme written by Klaus Deininger and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is one of the largest public works programs globally. Understanding the impacts of NREGS and the pathway through which its impacts are realized thus has important policy implications. We use a three-round 4,000-household panel from Andhra Pradesh together with administrative data to explore short- and medium-term poverty and welfare effects of NREGS. Triple difference estimates suggest that participants significantly increase consumption (protein and energy intake) in the short run and accumulate more nonfinancial assets in the medium term. Direct benefits exceed program-related transfers and are most pronounced for scheduled castes and tribes and households supplying casual labor. Asset creation via program-induced land improvements is consistent with a medium-term increase in assets by nonparticipants and increases in wage income in excess of program cost.

Download or read book Welfare and Poverty Impacts of India s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme Evidence from Andhra Pradesh written by Klaus Deininger and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Welfare and Poverty Impacts of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme written by Klaus Deininger and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is one of the largest public works programs globally. Understanding the impacts of NREGS and the pathway through which its impacts are realized thus has important policy implications. We use a three-round 4,000-household panel from Andhra Pradesh together with administrative data to explore short- and medium-term poverty and welfare effects of NREGS. Triple difference estimates suggest that participants significantly increase consumption (protein and energy intake) in the short run and accumulate more nonfinancial assets in the medium term. Direct benefits exceed program-related transfers and are most pronounced for scheduled castes and tribes and households supplying casual labor. Asset creation via program-induced land improvements is consistent with a medium-term increase in assets by nonparticipants and increases in wage income in excess of program cost.

Download or read book Employment Guarantee Programme and Dynamics of Rural Transformation in India written by Madhusudan Bhattarai and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-06-08 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an assessment of the performance, impact, and welfare implications of the world’s largest employment guarantee programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Launched by the Indian government, the programme covers entire rural area of the country. The book presents various micro-level analyses of the programme and its heterogeneous impacts at different scales, almost a decade after its implementation. While there are some doubts over the future of the scheme as well as its magnitude, nature and content, the central government appears committed to it, as a ‘convergence scheme’ of various other welfare and rural development programmes being implemented at both national and state level. The book discusses the outcomes of the programme and offers critical insights into the lessons learnt, not only in the context of India, but also for similar schemes in countries in South and South-East Asia as well as in Africa, and Latin America. Adopting inter-disciplinary perspectives in analysing these issues, this unique book uses a judicious mix of methods---integrating quantitative and qualitative tools---and will be an invaluable resource for analysts, NGOs, policymakers and academics alike.

Download or read book Evaluating Workfare When the Work is Unpleasant written by Arthur Alik-Lagrange and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prevailing practices in evaluating workfare programs have ignored the disutility of the type of work done, with theoretically ambiguous implications for the impacts on poverty. In the case of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, past assessments have relied solely on household consumption per person as the measure of economic welfare. The paper generalizes this measure to allow for the disutility of casual manual work. The new measure is calibrated to the distribution of the preference parameters implied by maximization of an idiosyncratic welfare function assuming that there is no rationing of the available work. The adjustment implies a substantially more "poor-poor" incidence of participation in the scheme than suggested by past methods. However, the overall impacts on poverty are lower, although still positive. The main conclusions are robust to a wide range of alternative parameter values and to allowing for involuntary unemployment using a sample of (self-declared) un-rationed workers.

Download or read book National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme written by Duggani Subramanyam and published by LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. This book was released on 2015-02-10 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Impact Of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme On Income And Employment Of Rural Households: A Case Study In Chittoor District Of Andhra Pradesh In Indian rural scenario, the problem of poverty and unemployment have always been and still continued to attract the attention of our policy makers. The pace of development among different states of the country and within the state among different districts has not been uniform, because there are not only regional differences, but also the divide appears to be ever widening. There are still districts which are lacking basic infrastructure facilities and employment opportunities. These districts, reports of starvation deaths from time to time and massive migration of labour. It is therefore quite imperative that such of the districts should be identified and sincere attempts have been made to bring them out on par with other developed districts. Several strategies have tried to find out a workable solution for achieving the phased regional development

Download or read book The political economy of MGNREGS spending in Andhra Pradesh written by Sheahan, Megan and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While government spending on pro-poor community asset creation and income-transfers could have compounding positive effects on poverty reduction, it is important to first study trends in the allocation of funds, particularly as they relate to the susceptibility of the program to political clientelism. This paper uses expenditure data at the local level in Andhra Pradesh from India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, a rights-based program distributing both public and private goods, to investigate the relationship between voting outcomes and program intensity in the seven years straddling a major election. By focusing on one state where accountability and transparency mechanisms have been employed and implementation efforts have been applauded, the authors do not find evidence of blatant vote buying before the 2009 election but do find that patronage played a small part in fund distribution after the 2009 election. Indeed most variation in expenditures is explained by the observed needs of potential beneficiaries, as the scheme intended.

Download or read book Women s Empowerment and Socio Economic Outcomes written by Giovanna Prennushi and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The paper explores whether one of the largest programs in the world for women's empowerment and rural livelihoods, the Indira Kranti Patham in Andhra Pradesh, India, has had an impact on the economic and social wellbeing of households that participate in the program. The analysis usespanel data for 4,250 households from two rounds of a survey conducted in 2004 and 2008 in five districts. Propensity score matching was used to construct control groups and outcomes are compared with differences-in-differences. There are two major impacts. First, the Indira Kranti Patham program increased participants' access to loans, which allowed them to accumulate some assets (livestock and durables for the poorest and nonfarm assets for the poor), invest in education, and increase total expenditures (for the poorest and poor). Women who participated in the program had more freedom to go places and were less afraid to disagree with their husbands; the women participated more in village meetings and their children were slightly more likely to attend school. Consistent with the emphasis of the program on the poor, the impacts were stronger across the board for the poorest and poor participants and were more pronounced for long-term Scheduled Tribe participants. No significant differences are found between participants and nonparticipants in some maternal and child health indicators. Second, program participants were significantly more likely to benefit from various targeted government programs, most important the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, but also midday meals in schools, hostels, and housing programs. This was an important way in which the program contributed to the improved wellbeing of program participants. The effects captured by the analysis accrue to program participants over and above those that may accrue to all households in program villages.

Download or read book Women s Empowerment and Socio Economic Outcomes Impacts of the Andhra Pradesh Rural Poverty Reduction Program written by A. Gupta and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Women s Empowerment and Nutrition written by Mara van den Bold and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many development programs that aim to alleviate poverty and improve investments in human capital consider women’s empowerment a key pathway by which to achieve impact and often target women as their main beneficiaries. Despite this, women’s empowerment dimensions are often not rigorously measured and are at times merely assumed. This paper starts by reflecting on the concept and measurement of women’s empowerment and then reviews some of the structural interventions that aim to influence underlying gender norms in society and eradicate gender discrimination. It then proceeds to review the evidence of the impact of three types of interventions—cash transfer programs, agricultural interventions, and microfinance programs—on women’s empowerment, nutrition, or both. Qualitative evidence on conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs generally points to positive impacts on women’s empowerment, although quantitative research findings are more heterogenous. CCT programs produce mixed results on long-term nutritional status, and very limited evidence exists of their impacts on micronutrient status. The little evidence available on unconditional cash transters (UCT) indicates mixed impacts on women’s empowerment and positive impacts on nutrition; however, recent reviews comparing CCT and UCT programs have found little difference in terms of their effects on stunting and they have found that conditionality is less important than other factors, such as access to healthcare and child age and sex. Evidence of cash transfer program impacts depending on the gender of the transfer recipient or on the conditionality is also mixed, although CCTs with non-health conditionalities seem to have negative impacts on nutritional status. The impacts of programs based on the gender of the transfer recipient show mixed results, but almost no experimental evidence exists of testing gender-differentiated impacts of a single program. Agricultural interventions—specifically home gardening and dairy projects—show mixed impacts on women’s empowerment measures such as time, workload, and control over income; but they demonstrate very little impact on nutrition. Implementation modalities are shown to determine differential impacts in terms of empowerment and nutrition outcomes. With regard to the impact of microfinance on women’s empowerment, evidence is also mixed, although more recent reviews do not find any impact on women’s empowerment. The impact of microfinance on nutritional status is mixed, with no evidence of impact on micronutrient status. Across all three types of programs (cash transfer programs, agricultural interventions, and microfinance programs), very little evidence exists on pathways of impact, and evidence is often biased toward a particular region. The paper ends with a discussion of the findings and remaining evidence gaps and an outline of recommendations for research.

Download or read book Women s Empowerment in Agriculture written by Esha Sraboni and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women’s low status and persistent gender gaps in health and education in South Asia contribute to chronic child malnutrition (Smith et al. 2003) and food insecurity (von Grebmer et al. 2009), even as other determinants of food security, such as per capita incomes, have improved. This is particularly relevant for Bangladesh, where chronic food insecurity continues to be an important issue despite steady advances in food production. To be able to leverage agriculture as an engine of inclusive growth, there is a need to develop indicators for measuring women’s empowerment, examine its relationship to various food-security outcomes, and monitor the impact of interventions to empower women. Using nationally representative survey data from Bangladesh, we examine the relationship between women’s empowerment in agriculture and two measures of household food security: per adult equivalent calorie availability and dietary diversity. We use the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index to assess the extent of women’s empowerment in agriculture and instrumental variables techniques to correct for the potential endogeneity of empowerment. We find that the overall women’s empowerment score, the number of groups in which women actively participate, women’s control of assets, and a narrowing gap in empowerment between men and women within households are positively associated with calorie availability and dietary diversity.

Download or read book Inclusive Development Through Guaranteed Employment written by Ashok Pankaj and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-12-02 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the inclusive development experiences and impacts of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). It discusses the theoretical assumptions underlying the inclusive development of Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS), and draws conclusions based on robust data and real-world experiences with the MGNREGS – which has attracted global attention as India’s most ambitious, rights-based development initiative and most expansive work-based social security measure, the world’s largest public works programme, and people-centric approach to development. The book argues that the Scheme holds vast potential, and, in fact, has made significant contribution to the promotion of livelihoods of the poorest of the poor, but that the weak institutions of local-self-governance, entrusted for implementation of the Scheme, are incapable of exploiting them to the full. It ends with a concrete policy suggestion: the inclusive development experiences gathered with the EGS and presented here could offer a source of policy change in many developing Afro-Asian countries whose situations are similar to India’s, provided the local conditions in the respective country are taken into consideration when designing the EGS. Its significance as a social security measure has increased in post-COVID loss of jobs and livelihoods of the poor.

Download or read book Is the NREGS a Safety Net for Children Studying the Access to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme for Young Lives Families and Its Impact on Child Outcomes in Andhra Pradesh written by Vinayak Uppal and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The NREGS is an ambitious public works program intended to provide a basic safety net to the rural poor in India. Institutionalised in 2005, it is currently the largest public works program in the world. Despite its scale and the political importance attached to the program, its success in targeting and its impact on participating households has not been well studied. This paper attempts to study two aspects of the program's functioning using data from the Young Lives longitudinal Study conducted in Andhra Pradesh. Firstly it looks at the targeting of the program and the characteristics of those who self select into it. We find that poorer and lower caste households are more likely to register as are those affected by drought. We also find that having more than 5 influential relatives increases the probability of registration by 10.3 percentage points. We next attempt to estimate the impact of program participation on the children in participating households, looking specifically at anthropometric scores as indicators of health outcomes, and the incidence of child labour. While there seems to be a positive correlation between program participation and health outcomes, this does not remain robust across specifications. On the other hand we find that program registration reduces the probability of a boy entering child labour by 13.4% points and program take up reduces it for girls by 8.19% points. We find that the targeting efficiency of the program seems to be largely effective and it seems to offer a viable security net for households with variable employment opportunities. It also seems to have an important effect on children, further strengthening the program's significance.

Download or read book The Political Economy of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme Spending in Andhra Pradesh written by Megan Sheahan and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While government spending on pro-poor community asset creation and income-transfers could have compounding positive effects on poverty reduction, it is important to first study trends in the allocation of funds, particularly as they relate to the susceptibility of the program to political clientelism. This paper uses expenditure data at the local level in Andhra Pradesh from India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, a rights-based program distributing both public and private goods, to investigate the relationship between voting outcomes and program intensity in the seven years straddling a major election. By focusing on one state where accountability and transparency mechanisms have been employed and implementation efforts have been applauded, the authors do not find evidence of blatant vote buying before the 2009 election but do find that patronage played a small part in fund distribution after the 2009 election. Indeed most variation in expenditures is explained by the observed needs of potential beneficiaries, as the scheme intended.

Download or read book Can the Major Public Works Policy Buffer Negative Shocks in Early Childhood Evidence from Andhra Pradesh India written by Aparajita Dasgupta and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study examines the role of the largest public works program in the world--the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS)--in buffering the negative effects of early childhood exposure to rainfall shocks on long-term health outcomes. Exploiting the spatial and temporal variation in NREGS coverage, the study estimates the extent to which nutritional shocks in early childhood can be offset by access to the program. The study employs a unique identification strategy by integrating detailed administrative records of drought shock and phased rollout information of NREGS with household-level panel data--the Young Lives survey--conducted over three waves (2002, 2007, and 2009-10) in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. Using individual fixed effects estimation, the study finds that while the policy does not help correct for long-term past health deficiencies it is useful in buffering recent drought shocks, which vary by policy relevant subgroups.

Download or read book Claim making under India s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act MGNREGA Barriers and opportunities for women s voice and agency over asset selection written by Kosec, Katrina and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2024-04-09 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines the dynamics of women's claim-making within the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme in India, focusing on their participation in selecting durable assets for climate resilience. Despite legal entitlements and protections for women within the program, gender disparities persist in claiming public resources. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach including surveys and qualitative interviews, the study uncovers various pathways to women’s claim-making, influenced by factors such as gender norms around mobility and women’s voice and agency, internal barriers and constraints including comfort in public speaking, and knowledge of the program and its various procedures for selecting assets. While challenges to women’s effective participation remain, findings from our analysis suggest potential for interventions to reduce gender gaps and enhance inclusivity in planning processes. Moreover, the study underscores the importance of recognizing diverse claim-making pathways to promote inclusion effectively within the program.

Download or read book Workfare as an E Ffective Way to Fight Poverty written by Shamika Ravi and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper analyzes the impact of India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) on households. In particular, we study the impact of the program on food security, savings and health outcomes of households. We follow 1064 households from 198 villages of Medak, Andhra Pradesh, over two years. In the early stage of the program, several households that applied for work, were denied employment due to shortage of work. We exploit this exogenous variation to calculate triple difference estimates of the impact of the program. Our results indicate that the NREGS significantly increased the monthly per capita expenditure on food by 9.6 percent and on non-food consumables by 23 percent. The program also improved food security by a significant reduction in the number of meals foregone by households per week. The program raised the probability of holding savings by 21 percent and reduced the incidence of depression by 12 percent. There were no significant impacts on physical health outcomes that we measured. We also analyzed data on alternative time use of households if NREGS did not exist. The results show that in the initial years, the program predominantly attracted non-agricultural labor (78 percent), this was because NREGS participation was concentrated in the dry summer months when agricultural labor work is scarce. Over time, however, we note that the program is predominantly attracting households that would have participated in agriculture labor (55.3 percent) if the NREGS did not exist. This suggests broader labor market distortions where NREGS is not just viewed as an employment assurance during slack agriculture season but as an alternative to agriculture labor work.