Tuesday, May 16, 2006
No great bias towards upper castes
Chances of the educated getting jobs similar for most.
Upper castes in the country do not have a dramatically higher chance of getting top jobs in comparison with SC/ST and OBCs, in case all of them have the same level of education, i.e. at least a high school degree.
Data taken from the National Sample Survey’s 1999 round show that upper castes who’ve passed out of school (at the very minimum), whether they’re Hindus, Sikhs or Christians, have a 39 per cent chance of landing a good job.
This is not dramatically different from the situation for other groups. While educated OBCs who passed high school had the smallest probability of getting a good job, of 28.6 per cent in 1999-2000, this was 31.7 per cent in the case of SC/STs.
If, however, you now decide to introduce reservation in jobs, the situation will change. If 22.5 per cent of the private sector’s top jobs are reserved for SC/STs, for instance, this means that, based on the 1999-2000 data, SC/STs will get a total of 2.9 million jobs, compared with the without-reservation 1.4 million.
In the case of OBCs, once the reservation of 27 per cent is accepted, the number of good jobs that are theirs for the asking will be 3.5 million – since the number of educated OBCs still remains the same 8.4 million, the probability rises by around 45 per cent.
The figure falls by 22 per cent for Muslims and for around 29 per cent in the case of upper caste Hindus, Sikhs and Christians.
Upper castes in the country do not have a dramatically higher chance of getting top jobs in comparison with SC/ST and OBCs, in case all of them have the same level of education, i.e. at least a high school degree.
Data taken from the National Sample Survey’s 1999 round show that upper castes who’ve passed out of school (at the very minimum), whether they’re Hindus, Sikhs or Christians, have a 39 per cent chance of landing a good job.
This is not dramatically different from the situation for other groups. While educated OBCs who passed high school had the smallest probability of getting a good job, of 28.6 per cent in 1999-2000, this was 31.7 per cent in the case of SC/STs.
If, however, you now decide to introduce reservation in jobs, the situation will change. If 22.5 per cent of the private sector’s top jobs are reserved for SC/STs, for instance, this means that, based on the 1999-2000 data, SC/STs will get a total of 2.9 million jobs, compared with the without-reservation 1.4 million.
In the case of OBCs, once the reservation of 27 per cent is accepted, the number of good jobs that are theirs for the asking will be 3.5 million – since the number of educated OBCs still remains the same 8.4 million, the probability rises by around 45 per cent.
The figure falls by 22 per cent for Muslims and for around 29 per cent in the case of upper caste Hindus, Sikhs and Christians.
