An Overview of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS): Data and Applications

About the Presentation

India Human Development Surveys I (2004-5) and II (2011-12) form part of a collaborative research program between researchers from the National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi, and UMD. The program goal is to document changes in daily lives of Indian households in a society undergoing rapid transition. IHDS is a nationally representative, multi-topic, longitudinal survey canvassing 40,018 households spread across all Indian States and Union Territories with the exception of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep. Data collected under IHDS are publicly available. It is useful to researchers who want to study India.

Learning Objectives :
· Become familiar with breadth and depth of the IHDS data
· Understand how to merge two survey rounds.
· Assess usefulness of IHDS for analyzing different socio-economic issues.
· Hands-on experience generating quick tables/graphs on interesting topics.

About the Speaker

Omkar Joshi doctoral candidate, Sociology at UMD, has previous training in the field of Economics with a focus on developmental issues. He has co-authored a comprehensive report on the household welfare impacts of a large scale public employment program titled “MGNREGA: A Catalysts for Rural Transformation” with Dr. Sonalde Desai. His interests include Inequality and Social mobility, Family demography and Caste networks and religion in India. Specifically, he is interested in the links between economic inequality, labour market and family structures. He holds a bachelor’s in Economics and Statistics, a Master’s in Econ from University of Mumbai, and Master’s in Sociology from UMD.  He is a GRA for Dr Sonalde Desai with India Human Development Survey (IHDS) project and is leading an experiment in data collection on labour force participation in India.