from the NFHS survey and finds that 39 percent of SC women, 51 percent of ST women and 30 percent of “Other” women report that they participate in the formal labor force. This broadly confirms the hypothesis of the inverse relationship between caste and labor-force participation rate.

But to what extent does greater employment translate into greater empowerment? Answering this question by using large national datasets is quite difficult, mainly because of the paucity of data on the status of women. Deshpande (2001) uses measures of literacy, asset ownership, mobility and autonomy that are included in the NFHS survey. She finds that for India as a whole 77.3 percent of SC women and 69.7 percent of ST women have no education, which is substantially higher than the average for other castes which is 51.6 percent. She reports lower overall asset ownership by SC and ST households and argues that SC and ST women face higher levels of violence and less mobility and autonomy even when they do participate in the labor force. She also emphasizes that estimates of female labor-force participation rates fail to adjust for the quality of working conditions and job security.

In another study, Deshpande (2002) uses the 55<sup>th</sup> round of the NSS data, conducted in 1999-2000, to show that the higher levels of poverty among SCs, STs, and OBCs—as measured by their physical mobility—undermine rather than enhance the status of women. In these groups, women are only marginally better off (in terms of mobility) than higherranked castes. Here too, she finds that contrary to the prevailing wisdom, lower-caste women are the worst off on measures of consumption and exposure to domestic violence.

Another perspective on the determinants of empowerment using large data-sets comes from the analysis of female-male sex ratios. The value of female children, as measured by survival, has been shown to increase with the female labor force participation rate (Dasgupta 1987). Early literature noted female-male sex ratios were more favorable among SC/ST groups in the pre-independence period (Dreze and Sen, 2002).<sup>7</sup> The decline in this ratio in the post-indepedence period has often been attributed to Sanskritization<sup>8</sup> of SC jatis who have placed restrictions on women in an attempt to improve the group’s status, particularly after benefitting from a variety of programs for social upliftment<sup>9</sup> . Establishing

> 7 – Dreze and Sen (2002: 241 45) summarize the findings on time trends of female-male sex ratios in the SC/ST population of India. They note that in pre-independence India, female-male sex ratios among SC/ST groups were significantly higher than the rest of the population, but by 1991, the sex ratio stood at 922 women per 1,000 men, while the rest of the population was 927 per 1,000 men (Dreze and Sen 2000).

> 8 The term Sanskritization was developed by M. N. Srinivas (1962, 1967, 1989). He defined this as the process by which castes placed lower in the caste hierarchy seek upward mobility by emulating the rituals and practices of the upper or dominant castes.

> 9The decline in the sex ratio among SC/ST groups is largely driven by states with the highest concentration of SC/ST population such as Uttar Pradesh. Dreze and Sen (2002: 242) note that the Chamar caste of UP, which is the largest SC caste in the state, had a female-male sex ratio of 986 in 1901, but by 1981 the SC/ST sex ratio had aligned with the rest of the population.

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