The privileged around the world deliberately conflate “poverty” with socio-economic marginalisation based on caste, gender, race and ethnicity. Let me share a few pointers.

There are two types of exclusion: “Individual” and “Group-Based”. Poverty is best understood in terms of “Individual Exclusion” (IE) and socio-economic marginalisation based on race, caste, gender and ethnicity is a result of “Group-Based Exclusion” (GE). Individual Exclusion (IE) is experienced by “individuals” from any groups: Whites, Blacks, Latinos, White Immigrants, Black Immigrants, Brahmins, Upper castes, Dalits, Adivasis, Other Backward Castes, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists. IE is a result of “individual attributes”.

You are differently-abled, you are excluded from jobs in Army, Navy, Air-force or Police. You don’t have money to buy a dress, car, house -you are excluded from the market. You do not have engineering qualifications – you are excluded from all the jobs where engineering degree is mandatory. You do not have English language skills – you are excluded from all the jobs where English is mandatory. You don’t have money to pay the medical bills -the doctor won’t treat you. You are excluded from medical services simply because you don’t have money. 

To address the problem of Individual Exclusion, governments design poverty alleviation programmes. Governments give free books, school uniforms, scholarships and all the necessary equipment to the poor and needy children so that they can avail education. If education is NOT FREE or there are no scholarships and fee waivers for poor children’s education, then the poor people should be angry with the government. A Poor Brahmin or a poor white has all right to be angry for facing *individual exclusion*. BUT they should be angry with the govt and NOT with some rarest of the rare “Rich Black” or “Rich Dalit.” 

Group-based exclusion (GE) happens because individual belongs to a particular gender, race, caste, ethnicity. You are excluded NOT because of *individual attributes* as in the case of Individual Exclusion. You are excluded BECAUSE you belong to a particular group. You are a qualified engineer and has required work experience. Yet, those in the selection committee will reject you because you are either a woman, Black, Dalit, Adivasi, Muslim or Latino.

You have more than enough money to pay your medical bills BUT the doctors refuse to treat you simply because of your group identity: Black, Dalit, Adivasi, Muslims, Latino etc. You can speak the English Language fluently BUT employers will not hire you because of your group identity women, Black, Dalit, Adivasi, Muslims, Latino etc. You have money to buy a house in a middle-class, upper-class or any locality but owners will not sell the house because of your group-identity Black, Dalit, Adivasi, Muslims, Latino etc. 

Group based exclusion is tackled by policies such as Reservation policy in India, Affirmative Action policies in USA and Quota policy in Germany. Bertrand & Mullainathan study: ‘Applicants with Black names needed to send out 15 applications to get one callback; White-named candidates needed 10. A Black needs 8 years of additional experience to get the same number of callbacks as a White.’ 

Thorat and Attewell study observed a pattern whereby ‘college-educated lower-caste and Muslim job applicants fare less well than equivalently qualified applicants with HC [High Caste] names, when applying by mail for employment in the modern private-enterprise sector’. Thorat & Attewell: “A total of 4808 applications were made in answer to 548 job advertisements over 66 weeks.”

Thorat and Attewell: “The type of discrimination being assessed is whether some kinds of college-educated applicants are disproportionately successful, and others disproportionately unsuccessful, at this earliest stage in seeking employment.” 

Thorat and Attewell: “A successful outcome as defined in this study involves simply being admitted to the second stage of the job selection process: being contacted for an interview or for testing.” 

Thorat and Attewell: “The most common answer to an application was no response whatsoever. Rejection letters were rare: only 17 applications (one-third of 1 per cent) resulted in rejection letters.” 

Positive outcomes: “employers either phoned or wrote to certain applicants asking to interview the person (or in some cases requesting the applicant to appear for a written test). There were 450 positive outcomes of this type (9.4 per cent of all experimental applications).” 

“The only aspect of family background that was communicated in these applications was the applicant’s name, yet this was enough to generate a different pattern of responses to applications from Muslims and Dalits, compared to those from HC [High Caste] Hindus.” 

“These were all highly-educated and appropriately qualified applicants attempting to enter the modern private sector, yet even in this sector, caste and religion proved influential in determining ones job chances.” 

“Job applicants with a Dalit or Muslim name were on average significantly less likely to have a positive application outcome than equivalently qualified persons with an HC [High Caste] Hindu name.” 

I hope this gives some clarity to those who constantly mix “poverty” with socio-economic marginalisation based on caste, gender, race and ethnicity. 

Author – Sumeet Mhaskar