The Contours of Economic Inequality in India Between 1980s and 2020s

This chapter presents an overview of inequality in the past four decades (since the 1980s) using analysis of publicly available secondary statistical databases and existing literature. These statistical databases contain information on consumption expenditure, wealth and earnings/income. We therefore examine these three variables and analyse both interpersonal (vertical) and group-based (horizontal) inequalities. When we examine the latter, we focus on the following three groups: class, caste and gender. For the past decade (roughly since 2012), the availability and quality of data are far from desirable. Apart from this, there are several limitations of these databases, e.g. they undersample the super-rich/super-wealthy and underrepresent their wealth; they also make a sharp distinction between rural and urban areas. There are issues of comparability across time, e.g. between consumption expenditure in the Periodic Labour Force Surveys conducted annually since 2017–18 and the National Sample Survey Consumption Expenditure database available till 2011–12. We provide an overview of these concerns. Our broad conclusion is that there is clear evidence of rising inequality from the early 1990s for about two decades. Post 2012 (or so), things are unclear given issues of comparability, but we have reasons to believe that wealth inequality has increased. We also briefly discuss the causal mechanisms that could drive our findings.