Paradigm of intergenerational mobility among scheduled caste in rural Bihar

he concept of intergenerational mobility deals with the transformative values of development that successive generation of a family achieves while scaling up their skill, preference and other socio-economic achievement. While Sanskritisation deals with the imitation of social values of higher caste by the low caste, intergenerational mobility is about the acceptance of transformative values over generations of a family, irrespective of the social group and the incremental changes in the social values in the due course of development. Understanding intergenerational mobility among social groups who are at the bottom of the social hierarchy merits attention. This is because caste-based discrimination excluded them in attaining socio-economic opportunities and they continue to remain outside the mainstream of society. In the due course of development, socio-economic and cultural transformation have been taking place with increasing urbanisation, migration and innovation. Such changes are expected to bring convergence between different social groups and lead to upward mobility among the low caste people. To understand upward mobility among the Scheduled Castes, the extent to which the changing process of development has been able to integrate them into the mainstream society by overcoming caste barriers needs to be explored. Given this context, this paper tries to locate the intergenerational mobility among Scheduled Castes in rural Bihar, taking into consideration various changes viz. educational, occupational and cultural that has taken place in the due course of time. The findings of the study suggest that there is a gradual change in these indicators. This calls for an analysis to understand the welfare programmes and policies that were implemented for the socio-economic improvement of the Scheduled Castes.