Social Group Disparities in Higher Education: Decompositional analysis for India and Major States

Disparity, measured in terms of educational attainment by social groups in India gives an insight into the progress made as a result of existing affirmative policies. Affirmative policies implemented for almost six decades are expected to bring the traditionally backward social group representation in higher education in par with the traditionally forward social group. An attempt was made to measure the intra and inter group disparities by demographic characteristics between and among the social groups by using the Theil index. Analysis showed that between groups disparity exists by social groups and within social group disparity is almost negligible in higher education. Analysis, further carried out by background characteristics of these social groups showed that within group disparity is seen only in females for all the states of India. Between group disparity showed that the group other is having higher educational attainment whereas traditionally backward social groups of India such still lag far behind the traditionally forward group others in terms of educational attainment. The disparities are multifaceted and differ from state to state in terms of the background characteristics. The policy maker should concentrate on this multifaceted disparity to achieve the equality in terms of achievement in higher education.