Some Mothers Are More Equal Than Others?

CASI Seminar

in partnership with South Asia Center

Reetika Khera
Associate Professor of Economics, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
A Virtual CASI Seminar via Zoom





About the Seminar:
India’s Maternity Benefits (Amendment) Act in 2017 was widely celebrated as it raised the number of weeks of paid maternity benefits to 26 weeks. However, these provisions apply to a tiny fraction of women in formal employment. A legal recognition of universal maternity entitlements in India came with the enactment of the National Food Security Act 2013, which made a provision of ₹ 6,000 per child. This seminar will present the findings of the Jaccha-Baccha Survey (JABS)—a survey of pregnant and lactating women in rural India—conducted between June and October 2019 in seven states.

About the Speaker:
Reetika Khera is a development economist and works on social policy in India. Currently, she is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. Previously, she was an Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad. She studied at the Delhi School of Economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) and Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex (M.Phil.). She was a post-doctoral Research Associate at Princeton University where she worked on child nutrition. She has published in professional journals, magazines, and newspapers on issues of food security, NREGA, education, child nutrition, and elections in India.

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.