Blog >> Social inequalities

Can Uttar Pradesh Ever Climb Its Sanitation Ladder?
- Topics: Sanitation, Social inequalities
The recent rape case of two minor girls in Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh has called forth a need for toilet construction for women. Perhaps, there is an urgent need for toilets (for men as well as women) but more...Read More..

How would babies vote?
- Topics: Child health, Maternal health, Sanitation, Social inequalities
Different places in India are voting in national elections on different days. Diane and I wrote these thoughts about the election together. Today, India is preparing for an election which will shape the lives of more people than any election...Read More..

Reflections on a first visit to India
- Topics: Child health, Sanitation, Social inequalities
Editor's Note: Nicholas Lawson is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Aix-Marseille School of Economics, and is the newest member of the r.i.c.e. extended family. Nicholas is a labour economist who has been studying the effect of early life health and...Read More..

Baby Care: Men’s not allowed
- Topics: Child health, Social inequalities
Sitting at the Delhi airport at 5:30 am, I noticed a pair of signs. The first was the official, plastic government-sponsored sign for the family restroom: "Baby Care," illustrated with a diaper. The second, printed on what we used to...Read More..

What’s the evidence on evidence-based policy?
- Topics: Sanitation, Social inequalities
Lant Pritchett wrote a blog for the Center for Global Development website last week on how development, including the decade-long RCT movement, is a faith-based activity. He says, "The delightfully quirky aspect of the success of the randomista movement is...Read More..

Could poor sanitation begin stunting children in utero?
- Topics: Child health, Maternal health, Sanitation, Social inequalities
This post is a little deeper in the scientific details than r.i.c.e. readers may be used to, but I hope you will stick with us, because it is important. Evidence is building up that enteropathy may matter a great deal....Read More..

A new paper and a new graph
- Topics: Child health, Sanitation, Social inequalities
The rice team is busy preparing for the coming months of field research: surveyor training starts this weekend, and Aashish, Diane, and Sangita are talking through last weekend’s pilot qualitative interviews as I write. Yesterday, I presented work in progress...Read More..

New photos from Sitapur
Check out the new photos of life in rural Sitapur posted on the photos tab! Many thanks to Aashish, who among many others things, takes wonderful pictures for rice! He rode around the villages near our house early one morning...Read More..

What makes people give… and to whom?
- Topics: Decision Making, Social inequalities
Psychologists and behavioral economists have long identified an "identifiable victim effect": people are much more likely to donate to help if an appeal mentions one needy person than if millions of people in need are invoked. This may be paradoxical...Read More..

Last night Diane and I went walking in Green Park, an upscale neighborhood in south Delhi. In addition to Deer Park, its main market boasts fine dining at Evergreen, A2B, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, Domino’s, and other restaurants intermingled with...Read More..

Aashish just had a paper published in EPW on the Old-Age Pension Scheme in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Take a look!...Read More..

Men benefit from patriarchy. And the environment loses.
- Topics: Environment, Pollution, Social inequalities
For the past seven years I have lived away from my parents, and visited them during vacations or work trips to Delhi. Seven years ago, I moved to Chennai to study, and for the last two years, I was working...Read More..

The Hindu discusses the “Bahus paper”
- Topics: Social inequalities
One of India's leading newspapers, The Hindu, today carried a piece called "Unequal status tells on Women's nutrition" discussing findings from Diane, Reetika and Dean's paper, "Women's status and children's height in India: Evidence from joint Rural households". Go read....Read More..

PEEPing around in UP
- Topics: Child health, Sanitation, Social inequalities
Hello. I am Aashish, and I have just started working for rice. I spent the most of May and June being an investigator for the PEEP Survey 2013 in Uttar Pradesh, and this first post for the rice-blog is about...Read More..

two posts about children’s height on Ideas for India blog
- Topics: Child health, Sanitation, Social inequalities
Check out two recent posts on the Ideas for India blog! Dean proposes that the "height gap" between Indian and African children may be due to a "toilet gap," that is relatively poor sanitation coverage in India, and Diane writes...Read More..

Two new working papers: Child height, women’s status, and sanitation
- Topics: Child health, Maternal health, Sanitation, Social inequalities
We've just added two new working papers to rice's research tab. The first, by Diane Coffey, Reetika Khera, and Dean Spears, "Women's status and children's height in India: Evidence from joint rural households" examines joint rural households in India to...Read More..