India’s Rural Employment Guarantee Program: Evidence from the India Human Development Surveys of 2004-5 and 2011-12

CASI Seminar

Co-Sponsored with SAS Population Studies Center

Sonalde Desai
Professor of Sociology, Maryland Population Research Center, University of Maryland
Center for the Advanced Study of India
3600 Market Street, Suite 560 (5th floor)
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Sonalde Desai is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland with a joint appointment as a Senior Fellow at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University and post-doctoral training at the University of Chicago and The RAND Corporation.

Professor Desai is a demographer whose work deals primarily with human development in developing countries with a particular focus on gender and class inequalities. She studies employment, education, and maternal and child health outcomes by locating them within the policy discourse and political economy of the region. While much of her research focuses on India, she has also undertaken comparative studies across South Asia, Latin America, and Sub Saharan Africa.

Professor Desai has published articles in a wide range of sociological and demographic journals and frequently writes for newspapers. She is currently leading a large nationally representative panel survey, India Human Development Survey, at NCAER.

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The Nand & Jeet Khemka Distinguished Lecture Series is an endowed public program of the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI). Launched in the 2007-08 academic year, and made possible through the generous support of the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, the series brings renowned India specialists to the Penn community and serves as a critical forum for analyzing and understanding the complex economic, political, social, and cultural changes that the world’s largest democracy is experiencing, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.
The Saluja Global Fellows Program has been made possible by the generous gift from Vishal Saluja ENG’89 W’89. CASI was excited to launch the program during the 2022–23 academic year, coinciding with the Center’s 30th Anniversary. This new program enables CASI to invite eminent leaders and rising experts on contemporary India preferably from the fields of media, culture, law, and contemporary history to be in residence for one to two weeks at CASI.