Farzana Afridi
Farzana Afridi is a Professor in the Economics and Planning Unit of the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi. Her primary research interests lie in the areas of education, gender, and more recently, political economy. She holds an abiding interest in understanding the response of individuals and households to public programmes in developing countries. She obtained her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and an M.A. in economics from the Delhi School of Economics.
Content by Farzana Afridi
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Blog post
The pandemic’s gendered impact on livelihoods and wellbeing: Evidence from India
A survey of over 700 households from India’s National Capital Region finds that women report bearing a greater burden of pandemic-induced mental stress relative to men, with potentially lasting effects on their well-being and productivity. Editor’s note: This article is part of our International Women’s Day campaign and is based on this IGC project. In the...
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Publication - Policy Brief
The impact of COVID-19 on livelihoods and mental health among the urban poor in India
With a population of 1.3 billion people, of which many are informal workers lacking access to social security, India faces significant policy challenges in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent lockdown. Based on surveys of husbands and wives in urban clusters of Delhi, this study provides evidence on the immediate and near-term impact of the crisis on the...
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Publication - Project Report
Livelihoods and mental well-being during COVID-19: A study using matched husband-wife-friend data in urban India
This study estimates the immediate and near-term impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the gendered aspects of employment and mental health of urban informal sector workers in India.
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Project
Networks, livelihoods and well-being in a pandemic: A panel study using matched husband-wife-friends data in urban India
Nearly 80% of all workers in India are daily wage earners or self-employed in the informal sector (ILO, 2018), a challenge in the path to inclusive development in the country. These workers constitute a large and particularly vulnerable section of India's population, especially in urban areas, that has no access to public safety nets and is highly susceptible to loss of...
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Multimedia Item - Video
Event: The impact of COVID-19 on informal and migrant workers in India
Full footage from our webinar event on 13th May 2020
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Publication - Growth Brief
Making the workplace work for women
The traditional economic rationale for increased female labour force participation is that it benefits women directly and society indirectly. A new argument looks at how increased female labour force participation can boost aggregate economic growth and hence, benefit everyone, on average. Yet, several factors hinder women’s productive employment. This Growth Brief...
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Publications Reader Item
Making the workplace work for women
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Publication - Project Report
Why are fewer married women joining the work force in rural India? A decomposition analysis over two decades
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Blog post
Governance and public service delivery in India
The International Growth Centre recently produced a synthesis paper (Afridi 2017) bringing together insights from its research on governance and public service delivery in India, over the past seven years. At a workshop organised by the IGC in collaboration with Ideas for India and Indian Statistical Institute, Amarjeet Sinha (Ministry of Rural Development), Rajesh...
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Project
IGC India Central synthesis papers
Since its inception in 2009, the IGC has funded more than 200 economic research projects in India on a wide variety of policy relevant topics. The vast knowledge generated through these projects has been synthesised in three recent IGC working papers on health, governance and public service delivery, and financial inclusion which can be downloaded below. The papers were...
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Publication - Policy note
Governance and public service delivery in India
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Publication - Synthesis paper
Governance and public service delivery in India
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Project
Women and work in rural India
In contrast with global trends, India has witnessed a decline in women’s employment rates over the past few decades. We investigated this decline in rural areas, where the majority of Indian women live. We found that increasing education levels among rural married women and the men in their households were the most important factors contributing to the decline...
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Blog post
Declining female labour force participation in rural India: The supply side
Analysis of National Sample Survey data shows that low rates of female labour force participation in India are concentrated among married women in rural areas. This blog suggests that this is partly because women with medium levels of education choose to spend more time on child care and domestic work. Globally, about half of all women work, and recent increases in rates...
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Multimedia Item - Video
Video: South Asia Growth Conference 2014 - Farzana Afridi
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Publication - Working Paper
School meals and classroom effort: Evidence from India (Working Paper)
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Publication - Working Paper
Women Political Leaders, Corruption and Learning: Evidence from a Large Public Program in India (Working Paper)
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Blog post
Does political reservation for women improve programme delivery?
This column outlines results of a study that assesses the impact of women leaders on corruption and other aspects of the quality of delivery of MNREGA. It argues that administrative experience, training and institutional support are essential for making women’s political participation and affirmative action policies more effective. Political reservations for women create...
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Project
Does Female Leadership Impact on the Quality of Public Goods? Evidence from a Public Poverty Alleviation Programme in Andhra Pradesh, India
Poor governance can be an important cause behind the disappointing performance of public programmes in developing countries. In this study we seek to identify the impact of female leadership on the governance of a large poverty alleviation programme in India, in a context where local people can closely monitor the actual against the prescribed allocation of public funds....
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Project
Cognitive Effects of Supplementary School Feeding Programme
Afridi, Barooah and Somanathan use the exogenous policy shock of the extension of provision of school meals to upper primary grades in public schools in Delhi to study the effects of school meal intake on the cognitive effort of students within the classroom. Using individual level data on the performance of students in effort games both before and after the extension of...
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Project
Information provision and the quality of education in rural India
This study seeks to understand whether providing information on the absolute and relative quality of schooling to the stakeholders affects the behavior of service providers in both the public and the private sector. The quality of public services offered to the poor, especially in health and education, is dismal in most developing countries. An often cited reason for the...