CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1. BACKGROUND

Throughout the world, various forms of social segregation create different sects of people who live as minority groups within national boundaries. A minority population is an often socially and economically disadvantaged and discriminated group of people. Discrimination is not only a social and moral issue, but also an economic issue. According to a report^[1] by the Center for American Progress in 2012, workplace discrimination causes a loss of $64 billion every year as a result of reshuffling 2 million American workers due to some form of discrimination. Similarly, a report^[2] published by The Atlantic in 2013 concludes that gender discrimination may have reduced India’s annual growth rate by almost 4% over the past 10 years. Likewise, according to a report^[3] published by the World Bank in 2014, homophobia and discrimination cost the Indian economy $30.8 billion every year. The resulting concerns of economists and others have led to the worldwide development and widespread use of “Affirmative Action” (AA) policies designed to prevent societal discrimination of historically disadvantaged groups. Economists have suggested various ways to ensure that those minorities’ rights are protected, not only so that they can become equal and productive members of societies, but also to ensure that resource allocation in the society is more efficient. Affirmative action (AA) policies are one of those policies which have been widely used around the world. Such policies are designed to ensure that the historically disadvantaged groups of people do not suffer any discrimination in their societies by enacting policies which favor those who tend to suffer from discrimination. Such policies are often referred to as “positive discrimination” policies and have been enacted in India to protect some of the social, ethnic and religious minorities. In this dissertation, I analyze the impact of a particular AA policy, political reservation, on the education, and health outcomes of a targeted minority group, the Scheduled Caste (SC), in India.

The concept of AA appeared in the United States as early as 1865, but the term “affirmative action” was first coined by President John F. Kennedy when he signed Executive Order 10925 on March 6, 1961. The executive order was issued to promote actions that discourage discrimination by ensuring that government contractors “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated fairly during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” A few years later in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued another Executive Action (#11246) requiring federal and state employers to “take affirmative action to hire without regard to race, religion and national origin” (sex was added to the anti-discrimination list in 1967).

Affirmative action policies in the U.S. have been arguably successful. AA in the U.S. applies to workplace and in college admission. The Supreme Court has been involved a few times in rulings pertaining to affirmative action policies. One of the first cases was Regents v Bakke (1978) when the Court upheld the AA policy of using race as one of the factors for college admission. However, the Court also ruled that defining specific quotas is illegal. Similarly, Grutter v Bollinger (2003) Supreme Court ruling also favored the use of race on college admission process. Despite some of the successful court cases, affirmative action in the U.S. remains a contested issue with the Fisher v. Texas (2013) case being the latest related case discussed in the United States Supreme Court. The general successes of AA in the Court have resulted in better outcomes for minorities. According to a report published in 2011 by the Americans for a Fair Chance, there has been an increase in college enrollments of people of color by 57.2%. Similarly, the proportion of women earning bachelor’s degree has also been steadily increasing. Likewise, according to statistics from the National Center on Education Statistics, 65% of African American high school graduates immediately enrolled in college in 2011 compared to just 56% in 2007- that number went from 61% to 63% for Hispanic graduates. These improvements in enrollments are attributed to the AA policies.