Higher Education, Employment, and Economic Development in India Problems, Prospects, and Policies

List of figures

List of tables

List of contributors

Foreword

Prelude

Acknowledgements

List of abbreviations

1 Higher education and Employment in India: An introduction

Ram Kumar Mishra, Sandeep Kumar Kujur, and K. Trivikram

2 Participation in higher education: The role of institutions

Jannet Farida Jacob

3 Gender gaps in employment preferences among university graduates in India

Pradeep Kumar Choudhury and Amit Kumar

4 Educational expansion and income inequality in India

Vachaspati Shukla

5 Indian higher education: Introspecting the state of quality

K.M. Joshi and Kinjal Ahir

6 The role and impact of academics’ societal engagement

Haiyang Chen and Sam N. Basu

7 The roles of agricultural universities in serving regional economic development

Min Zhao, Shuxia Ren, and Jun Du

8 Harnessing India’s demographic dividend: The way forward

Jajati Keshari Parida

9 Jobless growth in India: Employment–unemployment of educated youth

Mona Khare and Sonam Arora

10 Agricultural exports and informal sector in India: A macroeconomic perspective

Anirban Kundu

11 Industrial and occupational distribution of migrant workers in India

Mohd. Imran Khan

12 Understanding the decline in women’s employment in rural India

Rajendra P. Mamgain and Khalid Khan

13 Low female labour force participation: evidence from urban Kerala

Renuka S. and Anu Abraham

14 BRICS–EU global value chains trade and manufacturing employment

Usha Nori and Ram Kumar Mishra

15 Employability of FDI in India’s manufacturing firms

Sanjaya Kumar Malik

16 Technology and labour in India’s manufacturing

Ram Kumar Mishra and Sandeep Kumar Kujur

17 Imported inputs and labour in India's manufacturing

Sandeep Kumar Kujur and Diti Goswami

Biography

Ram Kumar Mishra is a Senior Professor, ONGC Subir Raha Chair, and NLC Chair at the Institute of Public Enterprise, Hyderabad, India, and is a graduate of the International Management Program, SDA Bocconi, Milan, Italy. He has been a Fellow of the British Council and Commonwealth Secretariat. He has taught at the University of Bradford, United Kingdom, and was a Visiting Professor at Maison Des Sciences De L’ Hommes, Paris; University of Technology Mara, Malaysia; and Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is a member of the UN Task Force on Standards of Excellence in Public Administration and Education. He has handled assignments for the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Power, Ministry of Trade and Commerce, and Ministry of Heavy Industry and Public Enterprises, Government of India. He has been a management consultant to several organisations, including DFID, Deloitte, Adam Smith Institute, ADB, and Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad, India. He is a member of the editorial boards of many international and national journals.

Sandeep Kumar Kujur is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Earlier, he was with the Institute of Public Enterprise, Hyderabad, India. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Economics, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and a Visiting Faculty to the Department of Business Management, Central University of Odisha, Koraput. He holds a PhD in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His research interests include industrial economics, economics of technological change, and labour and development economics.

K. Trivikram holds an MA and a PhD in Economics and is a Professor at the Institute of Public Enterprise, Hyderabad, India, with close to four decades of experience in teaching, training, and research. He has designed and conducted a good deal of management development programmes for central and state-level public enterprises for senior and middle-level executives, civil servants, and corporate executives. His areas of interest include business environment, public policy, corporate governance, and CSR.

‘This book examines important issues and policies on higher education and employment which are essential for economic growth, human development, and well-being of the population. It is a rich collection of chapters by well-known scholars in this field. The editors made sincere efforts to put together this important volume which is a must read for all the stakeholders.’

S. Mahendra Dev, Director and Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai

‘This book covers the trisection of the three most significant challenges facing the Indian Economy – first, the transformation of higher education by giving it a broad and inclusive base which can also power India into the knowledge economy and give an overall impetus to development; second, that of employment where recent changes in terms of employment growth and unemployment have been extremely disturbing, especially among the educated youth, and finally the challenge of labour markets, where the precariousness of employment denoted by the recent migration crisis has highlighted the need for appropriate labour policy changes and universal social protection to promote decent work for all. The contributions in this book are a significant addition to the knowledge and policy base which seeks to address these three major challenges.’

Ravi S. Srivastava, Former Chairperson, Institute of Development, Studies, Jaipur; Director, Centre for Employment Studies, Institute for Human Development; President, Uttarakhand & Uttar Pradesh Economics Association; Former Professor of Economics and Chairperson, Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Member, NCEUS, GoI

‘Put together in this volume is a collection of 15 insightful research chapters on higher education, employment, and development by about 20 scholars drawn from India and abroad. Recognising the powerful role of education as an income equalizer and as a significant contributor to growth and development, the authors unravel the intricate relationships between higher education and employment/unemployment informal and informal sectors, and development, besides probing quite a few emerging developmental issues. It is a very useful contribution to the analytical knowledge base on the subject. Students, researchers, and policy makers interested in development issues will find this volume edited by Prof R.K. Mishra and his colleagues to be a significant addition on to their resource material.’

Jandhyala B.G. Tilak, ICSSR National Fellow & Distinguished Professor, Council for Social Development, New Delhi and Former Vice Chancellor, National University of Educational Planning & Administration, New Delhi

‘The book titled Higher Education, Employment, and Economic Development: Problems, Prospectus, and Policies deals with important issues of current concern relating to higher educational inequality, income inequality, jobless growth, and impact of global value chains and foreign direct investment on manufacturing employment. It shows that the relationship between educational inequality, and income inequality is mutually reinforcing and educational institutions in India are perpetuating inequality. It suggests policies to address current concerns particularly unemployment. The book provides a clear, rigorous, and through exposition of its themes. The book is valuable to policy analysts and students of economics and management.’

Radhakrishna Rokkam, Chairman, Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad; Former Chairperson, Madars Institute of Development Studies, Chennai; Former Chairman, National Statistical Commission, Government of India; Former Director Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai and Former Vice-Chancellor, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam