Q: There are different kinds of discrimination in society. How does the spread of education among people help reduce this discrimination? 

A: The impact of education on moderating discrimination, such as that based on caste, race, ethnicity, region or gender, can be in many ways. In general, if some people get an education and others do not, it will increase the gap between these two groups, leading to discrimination based on education. Further, there is a discrimination based on certain kinds of knowledge in the caste system, with the brahmins and the upper castes having certain kinds of knowledge which were not permissible to the lower castes, and these educational differences are reflected in certain practices and behaviours. 

Q: Does the spread of education among girls reduce gender discrimination?

A: There is evidence that higher levels of education, and not merely primary education, improve the health, well-being, and position of women in family and society.  There are different aspects to the relationship between education and gender discrimination: Whether educated women are in a better position to resist discriminatory behaviour or those norms which impose choices of males on them? Whether education helps enhance women’s socio-economic standing in society, and if that helps in reducing gender discrimination? Let us understand this. 

Does education help women to take up jobs which give them a higher income? This is a slightly complex issue. While there is a general trend of increased participation of women in paid employment as their education levels go up, the relationship between education and employment need not be a linear one. Women from poorer families with no or very low education may work (say, as agricultural workers). When these women or their daughters get certain levels of education, there could be a tendency to be full-time homemakers. The participation of women in unskilled work (like that in agriculture) was seen in traditional societies as an outcome of poverty or compulsion; hence, a little improvement in their life circumstances would encourage heads of families to withdraw women from paid employment. This, then, becomes consonant with the patriarchal notions prevailing in the society. The aspirations of poor and working-class people to emulate slightly better-off sections (probably lower-middle class, and in the Indian context, ​‘lower-caste’ groups emulating the upper caste, as part of the process called ​‘Sanskritization’ may be enabling this process. Hence, the cultural context, especially patriarchy, may encourage (many times in subtle ways) the withdrawal of educated women from paid work (to be non-working ​‘homemakers’). This could also happen with an improvement in the income status of the family. Indeed, there is a possibility of reduced workforce participation as women get higher levels of education, as noted by many researchers. 

On the other hand, those women who get a much higher level of education may seek paid employment. For these women with higher education, the higher incomes that can be obtained from the labour market may become attractive enough for them to overcome the cultural preferences that keep women at home. Additionally, it could be that women may start asserting themselves and may consider paid employment as an opportunity to further this. Such involvement in paid employment may happen for women even in the lower middle class who are in, or who move towards, urban areas due to the need to earn more (in addition to the salary/​wages of their husband) to meet the needs of the household.

Though this can be a trend in many parts of the world, sections of girls with even higher education may not seek paid employment in India, which is the reason for the low participation rate of females in paid employment in the country. There can be two to three reasons. There may be a need to take care of children and the home, and many women (including educated ones) may devote themselves to these tasks. Or they may be able to take up only those jobs (say, as a teacher near their home) which allow them to carry out their duties at home. There can also be preferences for specific types of jobs, which are shaped by gender norms. It is rare to see young girls taking up the jobs of mason, electrician, plumber, etc., in India (even though these jobs may provide a wage rate which is higher than that of many jobs women take up, generally). This withdrawal from work, even after getting higher levels of education, may have implications for the (dis)empowerment of women. 

Q: How does the withdrawal from paid work affect the lives of women?

A: First, this may lead to the persistence of the dependence of women on the income of their husbands. This will reduce the autonomy and bargaining power of women in marriages. It can also lead to conflicts in marriage and become a source of domestic violence. If women do not earn an income, they will not be able to meet their (and their children’s) needs if there is a dissolution of the marriage. Hence, they will continue to remain in the marriage even if domestic violence becomes unbearable. 

When only men work, and women depend on the income of men, the practice of dowry will continue. Parents of girls will look for bridegrooms who can earn more. This will enhance the bargaining power of men to get a higher dowry. They may use this power to extract higher sums from the girl’s family even after the marriage. This can lead to dowry harassment, violence and sometimes, the homicide and suicide of women. 

The increase in dowry may also mean that some families may find it difficult to mobilise enough money for this purpose. There could be girls who may not be ​‘attractive’ based on discriminatory gender norms, and their families may have to mobilise more dowry. All these can enhance the pressure on the parents of girls. This may force at least a section of them to consider the girl child as a burden. These feelings can lead to sex selection at birth and also an unfavourable sex ratio. 

When women do not take up paid work, or if they withdraw from work after childbirth, it can affect their lifelong career. Even if they get back to work after a few years, they may not be able to catch up in employment status in comparison with others who may not take such a break. This can have implications not only for their life-long income but also their chances of career growth and leading meaningful lives. Only a few women may be able to overcome these constraints and excel in their jobs. 

This shows that providing education per se is not enough to empower women. There should be other socioeconomic policies. They should be supported to take up jobs wherever these are available. This may require interventions in gender norms. There should be other policies which create an enabling environment for the work participation of women. The provision of childcare facilities is very important in this regard. These may include creches in workplaces. In addition, there have to be a lot more state-supported facilities for infant care so women can get back to work after maternity leave. 

There are interesting experiments in this regard. South Korea adopted a generous social security scheme for older people. This reduced their dependence on the son’s family. It has reduced the practice of patri-local residence (wherein the girl goes to her husband’s family and lives with him and his parents). This, in turn, has reduced certain negative impacts on women (and reduced the sex-selection at birth).

Q: Is there any evidence that higher education of men reduces their discriminatory attitude towards women?

A: Yes, there is some evidence in the developed world.  Men with higher levels of education seem to be sharing a greater part of home-related tasks, which have been considered the responsibility of women traditionally.  But these may not be that relevant in India due to other socio-economic contexts.

Q: What could be the impact of the spread of education on discrimination based on race, caste, etc.?

A: Let us consider race first. Even in India, there is discrimination based on skin colour.  This manifests in two ways. First, there is social shame or an inferiority complex among those who have dark skin. This is reflected in marriage markets, and people do not mind writing about their desirable skin colour as an attribute in marriage negotiations or match-seeking advertisements. People from African countries face racial discrimination in India. 

The evidence about the impact of education on racial discrimination is somewhat mixed. One can see a change in attitude in this regard in people with higher levels of education in developed countries, and they are less likely to practice racial discrimination openly. However, they do not demonstrate a higher willingness to change structural factors in society which are connected to racial discrimination. For example, they need not support legislations which mitigate the impact of such discrimination. This may work against the social support for different kinds of affirmative action. Recent conflicts in the US against diversity initiatives, even in universities, may be an example of this reluctance to take structural measures against discrimination, even among the educated population.

Q: What about caste discrimination, an issue that is mainly in India? 

A: There is a section of so-called lower castes who could get higher levels of education. (Of course, this is only a section, since another section among them may not even complete school education, so even though there is a reservation of seats in higher education for these groups, the benefits of reservation are available only to those who complete school education.) Does this education help them to resist caste discrimination? This seems to be the case. Educated people among the lower castes are at the forefront of demanding policies which ameliorate the negative impacts of caste. The sustenance of caste-based reservation itself can be based on their struggles. There are also political movements based on caste, and one can see educated people providing intellectual leadership to such movements. 

Whether the acquisition of higher levels of education enable people belonging to lower castes to achieve socioeconomic mobility? Here, we can separate social and economic upliftment. There is a certain level of economic mobility for those who get higher levels of education. The reservation in government jobs is helpful in this regard. However, there is a notable unemployment among those with higher education in India (its reasons are discussed in other Q&A notes). This unemployment affects educated people from lower castes also. 

However, the issue of social mobility for lower castes is an inherently slow process. I mentioned ​‘inherently’ due to the nature of the caste system. Certain castes are considered ​‘lower’ and others ​‘upper’. This will change only if the system itself is destroyed. Something that is not happening in India, despite all other improvements. For example, extreme manifestations of the caste system, like untouchability, have disappeared from most parts of India, though these are still prevalent in different forms in some parts of the country. 

An important manifestation of the persistence of the caste system is that more than 80 percent of marriages in the country take place within the caste (or are intra-caste marriages), even today. Despite all improvements in education and employment for a significant section of society, the majority are not willing to marry outside their caste. What may enable inter-caste marriages? There is a small share of such marriages in the country, and researchers have used this data to analyse the possible factors which may enhance the likelihood of such marriages. They have identified three factors, but all of these are related to women. If girls get higher levels of education, they live in or move to cities for employment, and if they delay the age at marriage to thirty or more years, the likelihood of an inter-caste marriage is a little higher. On the other hand, education, employment and residence of men do not have enabling impacts on inter-caste marriage. Since the majority of people continue to marry within their caste, the caste system prevails there. Hence, the spread of education per se has not enabled social mobility of lower castes in India. There could be various reasons for this situation. 

First, the upper caste benefits from their caste connections. Education and enterprise-building benefit from social capital and networks, and these are shaped by caste for many Indians. Since upper castes (like Brahmins) were getting some form of education for generations, their caste status helped the process of acquiring education. For all these reasons, they have an incentive to continue with caste practices. When upper castes hold on to their caste, lower ones use it as a marker of identity, which forms the basis of their political mobilisation. It is useful to resist caste discrimination and also to get more public resources from the state. Hence, both the upper and lower castes have an incentive to hold on to their caste identities. 

However, there is one more reason for the persistence of the caste system in India. That is due to the way marriages are conceived in India. Conventionally, most parents seek the personal, financial and social security of their daughters in marriages. They expect the husband to take care of their daughter and her children. India has parti-local marriages whereby girls go and stay in their husband’s house and take care of his parents. These have strengthened discriminatory gender norms. It can work against the work participation of girls. (It can also enhance the burden of parents when they have daughters, since they have to mobilise money for dowry payments, and they may not get benefits from daughters in terms of money or care.) All these enhance the vulnerability of girls. Parents and families are aware of this situation. Hence, they are excessively careful in arranging the alliance of their daughter. This sustains arranged marriages, and they use all kinds of networks and precautions to see that the relationship is sustainable for the welfare of their daughter. Hence, caste plays an important role here and leads to the prevalence of intra-caste marriages. This works against inter-caste marriages. 

Caste as a marker of social identity of individuals continues to prevail in India, and it decelerates the social mobility of lower castes. To some extent, there cannot be any reform in our caste system without addressing its gender norms. These two are closely interlinked; the reform of one without that in the other is less likely to be effective. It is this problem that reduces the impact of the spread of education or the social mobility of lower castes in India.

Q: There are other kinds of discrimination based on place of origin, citizenship, ethnicity, sexual orientation and so on, all over the world. Does education have a moderating impact on all these behaviours?

A: The expectation from a liberal worldview was that the spread of education and associated economic development would lead to a metropolitan lifestyle and worldview wherein the roots or the colour of a person would not matter for social, political and economic interactions among people. There is an element of truth in this worldview. If we take other countries, we see that it is those with higher levels of education who follow liberal values. This is true in both developed and less-developed countries. However, not all educated people share this view. 

One can see a rise of illiberal attitudes against immigrants, sexual minorities and people belonging to specific ethnicities, etc., even in developed countries like the USA. This raises suspicions about whether the spread of education has a positive impact on enhancing the tolerance of people towards ​‘others’ (who have different identities or views). 

There can be two views regarding this. One is that education per se is not enough to create such a tolerant attitude; there may be other socioeconomic factors which lead to this attitude. The increase in immigration of people to developed countries, and the difference in the social/​cultural practices between citizens and immigrants, have enhanced the apprehension in the minds of the former. There could be social, cultural, economic and political reasons behind these apprehensions. 

The second view could be that the kind of education that is available in different parts of the world is not enabling students to develop an understanding or acceptance of others. This lack of understanding breeds suspicion. The importance of intercultural education to address this problem is recognised globally. However, it is yet to get wider acceptance in actual practice. Though such an education is practised in parts of the world, it is seen as a way to integrate minorities into mainstream education. Its potential to change the attitude of the mainstream population is yet to be realised. There are a few small experiments, for example, in South Africa, to enhance the mutual understanding between people belonging to different races. These indicate certain possibilities. 

The reality could be somewhere in between these two views. People’s views are affected by a number of socioeconomic factors, and not just by education. There is a potential to use education to change these views; to make people less discriminatory towards ​‘others’, but there are not enough efforts in this direction. 

About the author:

Santhakumar V is a former Professor, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru

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