Women and Intergenerational Mobility in Education: A

Micro-Level Study from Weavers’ Community of Varanasi,

India

Laeek Siddiqui, PhD

International Institute for Population Studies; Mumbai, India

Namrata Shokeen, MA
Department of Sociology, Monk Prayogshala; Mumbai, India

Correspondence:

Dr Laeek Siddiqui, International Institute for Population Studies; Mumbai 400088, India. Email:
siddiqui.laeek@gmail.com

Or

Ms. Namrata Shokeen, Monk Prayogshala, Mumbai 400072, India, Email:

namratashokeen8@gmail.com

Conflict of Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interests.

Note: This is a working paper. We are uploading this paper to gain feedback, so please do
not cite.

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Women and Intergenerational Mobility in Education: A Micro-Level Study from Weavers’
Community of Varanasi, India

Abstract

Macro-level studies on intergenerational mobility among women in India suggests that there is a need
to further probe certain excluded communities that have a higher likelihood of persistence of
educational attainment among women through micro-level studies. The present study investigates the
extent and drivers of high/low intergenerational educational mobility among young women (vis-à-vis
their mothers) belonging to the weavers’ community of Varanasi, India. Using transition/mobility
matrices and mobility measures, along with qualitative methods, the paper builds on a mixed-methods
study conducted among 364 households of weavers’ community from Varanasi. The study shows that
the overall intergenerational educational mobility among women (vis-a`-vis their mothers) from the
weavers’ community of Varanasi is 0.30 and there is no downward mobility. The qualitative findings
further highlight various reasons enabling or preventing high educational mobility in the given
context. In conclusion, the paper illustrates several micro-level issues and disparities in
intergenerational educational mobility that are not clearly evident through the macro-level studies and
further helps in making informed policy decisions.

Keywords: Intergenerational Mobility, educational endowment trap, Females’ education, Weavers’

communities, Varanasi, India

Competing Interests: The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

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 Women and Intergenerational Mobility in Education: A Micro-Level Study from Weavers’ Community of
Varanasi, India

1. Introduction

Research on intergenerational mobility has made significant progress in the past two decades. Throughout the years
its analysis has expanded to a larger number of countries and has included different dimensions of mobility (Torche,
2015). The vast literature on intergenerational mobility from the west and the few notable studies from South Asia
(i.e., India) for example (Asher et al., 2018; Azam & Bhatt, 2015; Borkotoky et al., 2015; Choudhary & Singh, 2017,
2019; Emran et al., 2021; Hnatkovska et al., 2013; Jalan & Murgai, 2008; Majumder, 2010, 2013; Vaid, 2016) presents
itself as a very interdisciplinary field and refers to the extent to which socioeconomic outcomes such as income,
education or occupation, are likely to change across different generations (Torche, 2015).

Among the wide range of socio-economic indicators (i.e., income, occupation, health etc.) education is considered
one of the prominent dimensions of analysis in intergenerational mobility research due to several reasons. Such as the
positive association between years of schooling and future earnings; the crucial role of education in eventual chances
of social mobility and its contribution in understanding inequalities (Leone, 2019). Furthermore, the adoption of the
2030 agenda for Sustainable Development again bought intergenerational educational mobility at the center of
political debate. By measuring intergenerational educational mobility, one could possibly identify the increase in
opportunities for the younger generations so that the chances of success are less dependent on inherited characteristics
and more on individual choices (United Nations General Assembly, 2015).

Over the years there has been a drastic increase in the level of educational attainment in developing countries,
including India. The overall literacy rate in India increased from 18.33 per cent in 1951 to 74.04 per cent in 2011
(Cenus, 2011) and the current overall literacy rate of India stands at 77.70 per cent (National Statistical Commission
Survey, 2021). However, this increase in education should not be construed as more equality along the lines of gender.
The literacy rates among women have remained far behind men in India. According to the National Statistical
Commission Survey (2021), male literacy at the national level currently stands at 84.70 per cent whereas the female
literacy rate is only 70.30 per cent.

In addition, in terms of gender parity, India has been continuously ranked (112, 140, and 135 respectively) at the
bottom of the world (Global Gender Gap Report, 2020, 2021, 2022). Data from various large-scale surveys highlight
the harsh disparities and huge gender gap in income, health and access to education among different sections of women
in India (National Family Health Survey, 2016-19, 2019-21).

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In this line, Choudhary and Singh (2017) point out how measuring the extent of intergenerational educational mobility
among women in India could be a matter of great interest. They argued that since Indian society is characterized by a
high degree of social stratification and income disparities, especially along the lines of gender, it might possibly result
in huge disparities in socio-economic patterns like intergenerational mobility as well (Azam & Bhatt, 2015). Chusseau
et al. (2013) further argued that in many developing countries the intergenerational persistence of inequality has
remained very high. This shows that under-education and poverty traps could exist, and the same families may
constitute the best-paid and the most educated women generations after generations.

1.1 Women and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in India

Several studies highlight the significance of mothers’ education and its impact on their daughters’/children’s life
chances in terms of their potential success in education, future jobs and health outcomes (Chudgar, 2011;
Kambhampati & Pal, 2001; Majumder, 2013; Roemer, 2006). Choudhary and Singh (2017) argued that education
among mothers is important from an academic as well as a societal perspective. Firstly, equal educational opportunities
among women ensure that there should not be any substantial differences between various socio-economic
demographic groups. Secondly, in line with the previous literature, it also ensures the educational and health well-
being of the children, especially daughters in the household.

However, despite the immense significance of mothers’ education on the welfare of their daughter's education as well
as overall society, studies on intergenerational mobility in India mostly remain focused on masculine variables, say
father-son. (i.e., Azam & Bhatt, 2015; Maitra & Sharma, 2009). Only a few studies have also related daughters’
education to their fathers, for example, Azam (2016) examined educational transmission from fathers or mothers (as
parents) to their daughters in India. However, there have been huge changes in the educational enrollment data in India
compared to the data used by Azam (2016). Also, the study further doesn’t decompose the data using mobility matrices
measures, which makes it difficult to distinguish between daughters’ educational categories that are ‘close’ or ‘distant’
to the mother’s educational category.

There is little evidence on intergenerational educational mobility that specifically investigates mother-daughter
relationships in India, with a few notable exceptions like Chaudhary and Singh (2017;2019). Using the India Human
Development Survey 2011-2012, Choudhary and Singh (2019) measure intergenerational educational mobility among
mother-daughter relationships across different states, social categories and spatial regions in India. Their study
illustrates that there are huge disparities in the patterns of intergenerational transmission of education among women
across various regions and social categories in India. For instance, upward mobility among women is higher in urban
areas as compared to rural areas. Also, overall intergenerational educational mobility is slightly higher in the
‘Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SC/ST)’ compared to the ‘Other Backward Castes (OBC)’ as well as ‘Others’ castes.
But the upward mobility is substantially higher in the ‘Others’ caste group compared to SC/STs. The upward mobility
among the OBCs is higher than that of SC/STs but lower than that of the ‘Others’ category (Choudhary & Singh,

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2019). Choudhary and Singh (2019) further conclude that they could not find detailed reasons for the variations in
trends and patterns in mobility due to the unavailability of adequate data.

1.2 Need for Micro-Level Studies on Intergenerational Education Mobility among Women

Our discussion in the previous section, suggests that there are substantial variations in the estimates of
intergenerational education mobility among women across various socio-economic indicators such as caste, class,
spatial areas etc. In India, such disparities are often reflected in regional variations in human development indicators
like education (Majumder, 2013). As a result, many communities have improved tremendously in terms of educational
attainment among women, while there still exists certain excluded communities where women’s education has
remained far behind the national or state average (Majumder, 2013). For instance, through a micro-level study in five
districts of West Bengal, Majumder (2013) highlight the vast regional variations in intergenerational educational and
occupational mobility compared to the national average. The study finds that in terms of overall social mobility,
educational standards and occupational distribution, the backward classes (mobility among SC/STs) in the study
region are much worse off than the advanced classes in the region and the SC/STs at the macro-level too. This study
does not specifically calculate educational mobility among women but does provide us with a brief description of
micro-level disparities in educational transmission.

Majumder (2013) further argues that it is important to investigate the areas and communities with high possibilities
of low-upward educational mobility through micro-level studies to identify regions and communities where
generations after generations women have remained most disadvantaged. Results based on macro-level studies or
large secondary data sets (mostly designed for varied purposes), do not provide an accurate description of the
transmission of education among certain severely excluded communities like manual scavengers, tribals, and weavers
due to the inadequacy and unavailability of data regarding their education status. Furthermore, macro-level studies are
unable to capture the community-specific challenges pervading high upward education mobility among them. This
calls for a need to investigate intergenerational educational mobility through micro-level studies to understand the
existing challenges, the extent of persistence of educational transmission and inequalities among certain excluded
communities in India. Therefore, to address the lacuna in the existing literature this paper investigates intergenerational
educational mobility among from weaving communities of Varanasi through a micro-level mixed-methods study.

1.3 Context of the Study Region: Women from Weaving Communities of Varanasi, India

The prologue of the Fourth Handloom Census (2020) conducted by the Indian Ministry of Textiles, begins by detailing
the evolution of the handloom industry in India and establishing progressive connections between women’s
empowerment and financial independence through their engagement in the weaving sector. The Handloom Census
clearly points out the importance of women in the weaving sector by highlighting the vast number of women
associated (nearly 23 lakhs) with the industry in India. The weaving sector in India is largely carried out by family-

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based enterprises, which makes the sector composed of many generations of families, especially women working in
the same industry year after year.

However, several studies suggest that despite being highly skilled craftsmen, handloom weavers in Varanasi are
among the poorest workers in India (Wood, 2014). One of the major reasons for the sheer ‘backwardness’ (in terms
of income) among them, is that due to industrialization, the handloom industry in Varanasi was thrown away by the
power looms. Because, compared to handloom weaving, weaving through the power looms produces material in
mass, takes lesser time, has lower tariffs, does not need skilled labour and has lesser wages (Wood, 2014).

In terms of education, although it is considered one of the most powerful tools to empower different sections of
marginalized women to enable them to move out of their poor socio-economic context. However, among larger social
welfare narratives, the idea of ‘empowerment’ of women belonging to weaving communities seems to revolve
primarily around their occupation only. For instance, major projects around enhancing literacy among the weavers
i.e., the study by the National Institute of Open Schooling (Pathak, 2017), memorandums with Indira Gandhi National
Open University (Press Information Bureau, 2021) and the Antaran Project by Tata Trusts (Chowdhary, 2019) focus
merely on the professional skill enhancement of those associated with weaving communities through education.
Although we do consider the need to provide professional expertise to weavers to further enhance their socio-
economic conditions yet, such a fixation on the occupation of weaving communities in the social welfare idea of
‘weavers’ education’ promotes certain notions as if the historical occupational status of the families is the sole destiny
of the children from such households.

As a result, education among women from weavers’ communities of Varanasi has not received much attention.
According to the Fourth Handloom Census (2020), at the national level, nearly 23.1 per cent of the women from the
households belonging to the weaving communities have never attended school. Furthermore, 12.5 per cent have
achieved education below the primary level, 16.2 per cent reached the primary level, 23.6 per cent of women from
households associated with weaving have a middle school education, 14 per cent have high school education and only
10.6 per cent achieved a higher secondary level. Furthermore, little is known about the educational status of the
weavers specifically from Varanasi. A very old but detailed report shows that nearly 40 per cent of the households
associated with handloom weavers are illiterate in Varanasi (Showeb, 1994, p.25 cited in Wood, 2014).

Given the poor economic conditions and low educational attainment among the weavers’ community of Varanasi,
there are high chances of younger generations, especially women being trapped in the low education endowment trap.
Therefore, this paper investigates intergenerational educational mobility among young women (24-35 years) (vis-a`-
vis their mothers) from weaving communities of Varanasi through a mixed-method study. The paper primarily
addresses two crucial questions. Firstly, to what extent the mother’s education and the educational attainment of her
daughter are related? Secondly, what drives the high/low intergenerational educational mobility among the daughters
of the current generation belonging to the weavers’ community of Varanasi.

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2. Data and Methodology

The present study employs a mixed-methods approach and the data was collected between November 2019 to February
2020.

2.1 Sampling Procedure

Using the formula developed by (Cochran, 1977), the estimated sample size of the present study is 364, with a
prevalence rate of 0.17 and a design effect of 1.5. The data for the study has been collected using multi-stage random
sampling. Varanasi has two sub-districts (Tehsil) namely, Varanasi and Pindra (Census, 2011), which consists of eight
blocks. The present study considers the information based on Census (2011) since there is no readily available data
on weavers’ population size in these blocks. As per Census 2011, the occupational information among the country is
organized as main and marginal workers. The main workers consist of agricultural labourers, cultivators, household
industry workers, other workers and non-workers. As our study is based on weavers, household industry workers and
other workers have been considered for the present study, and the rest were excluded to estimate the tentative number
of weavers. Preliminary field visits revealed that there were hardly any weavers’ groups in the two blocks of Sevapuri
and Baragaon, and as a result, they were eliminated. Finally, using Probability Proportional to Size (PPS) Sampling,
two of the six blocks were chosen at random (namely Arajiline and Kashividyapeeth). Villages and Census Towns
were chosen at the second level. Arajiline block has 220 villages, whereas Kashividyapeeth block has 106 villages,
The study further used a criterion for selecting communities (communities with more than 200 main employees) to
obtain a large number of households from weaving communities. Thus, we were left with only 71 villages in the
Arajiline block and 70 villages in the Kashi Vidyapeeth. Using the PPS sampling approach, five villages were
randomly selected from both blocks. Similarly, Census towns have been chosen for this investigation (Two out of six
from Arajiline and two out of 19 from Kashividyapeeth block).

In the third stage, after interacting with the key informants, in the census towns, several densely populated pockets of
weaving communities were identified. The key informants majorly comprise members from the Bunkar Dashtak
Munch and People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR), the President of Bawani Panchayat, Deputy
Director of Weavers’ Service Centre, Director of Nitra Power-loom Service Centre and Testing Lab etc. Based on
their inputs, mapping and the household listing were done to arrive at a sampling frame for the present study.

In this stage mapping and household listing operation was carried out in the selected villages, to get a sampling frame
for households having at least one person aged >=50 years, currently engaged or were engaged in the past in the
weaving sector. The study takes the data from respondents’ wife, in order to collect data for the mothers’ category.
Further, to ensure that most girls (in the daughters’ category) have completed their education, it was made sure that
the eldest daughter within the household is above 24 years. The present entails the information regarding the eldest of
the household and her biological mother.

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Eventually, using Systematic Random Sampling (SRS), the estimated sample size was drawn, based on the proportion
of eligible weavers’ households selected in each village/census town. Finally, from every selected household one
eligible respondent was interviewed (226 from rural and 138 from urban settings) in Hindi, using a structured interview
schedule (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Sampling Framework

2.2 Qualitative Data

Iversen et al. (2021) point out that the methods used in the current literature to understand the drivers of social mobility
are less useful in Indian contexts and call for methodological advancements to further explore the in-depth realities of

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the changes in patterns of intergenerational educational mobility among women. Furthermore, Shilpi (2021) argues
that to understand the ways to address low mobility, it is important to know what drives the strong persistence of low
educational attainment among children, especially girls. However, it is still unclear what are the drivers of low/high
intergenerational educational mobility and factors impacting intergenerational educational mobility among women
have not been empirically investigated. So, qualitative data is needed to explore the drivers that promote or hinder the
persistence of low educational attainment among daughters with reference to their mothers.

Therefore, Semi-structured key informant interviews (KII) and in-depth interviews (IDIs) were conducted using pre-
tested guidelines. The use of KIIs enabled in-depth interviews, one-to-one communication and lively dynamic
discussions. Further, five IDIs and three KIIs with local weavers were conducted in the local language (Hindi). All
participants were encouraged to discuss their opinions openly. All discussions and interviews’ audio were recorded
with proper consent and further, translated (from Hindi to English) and loosely transcribed. The duration of the
interviews ranges from 40 to 60 minutes.

2.3 Ethical considerations

Ethical approval for the present study was granted by the Institute Research Ethics Committee (SREC) of the
International Institute for Population Sciences in Mumbai, India. Informed consent from the participants was obtained
in the respondent’s own language. The confidentiality and privacy of the information provided by the respondents
were assured. Prior permission for the audio recording of interviews was obtained from the respondents. The names
of the respondents are further anonymized to maintain the confidentiality of the participants.

2.4 Methodology for Mobility Measures

The present study uses the same methodology as Choudhary and Singh (2019) to calculate and decompose the mobility
matrices and measures. The study uses ‘transition’ or ‘mobility matrices’ and two mobility measures generally referred
to as M1 and M2 in the literature on intergenerational mobility. Educational transition or mobility matrices give the
percentages of daughters who belong to the various educational categories corresponding to their mother's educational
category. According to the literature, these percentages can be understood as conditional probabilities or the likelihood
that a daughter will belong to a certain category if her mother belongs to a particular category (Choudhary & Singh,
2017; Motiram & Singh, 2012).

Using the same notations as (Choudhary & Singh, 2019); let pij (i,j = 1,…,m) be the value in the ith row and jth column
of the transition matrix (T), that is, the probability that the daughter’s educational category is j given that her mother’s
educational category is i. m is the number of categories. The first mobility measure, M 1 is:

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 𝒎 𝒎 𝒎
𝟏 𝟏
𝑴𝟏 = ∑ ∑ 𝑷𝒊𝒋 = (𝟏 − ∑ 𝑷𝒊𝒋 ) … … … … … … … (1)
𝒎 𝒎
𝒊=𝟏 𝒋=𝒊 𝒊=𝟏
𝒋≠𝒊

M1 denotes the probability that a daughter will leave her mother’s educational category. It is also known as the
normalized distance between the transition matrix and the order m identity matrix (Motiram & Singh, 2012). The
identity matrix (which comprises a leading diagonal of 1’s and the rest of the entries as 0’s) represents perfect
immobility since whatever the educational category of the mother is, the daughter falls in the same category (that is,
with probability one). However, this measure has a limitation that it could not account for the ‘distance’ between the
educational categories of the mother and daughter. Hence, we also use M 2 to address M1’s limitation:

𝒎 𝒎
𝟏
𝑴𝟐 = ∑ ∑ 𝑷𝒊𝒋 |𝒊 − 𝒋| … … … … … … … (2)
𝒎(𝒎 − 𝟏)
𝒊=𝟏 𝒋=𝟏

There is a total of m(m-1) transitions possible between a mother’s education and a daughter’s education. Also, for a
given education of the mother (i), the expected distance between the education of the mother and daughter is

∑ 𝑷𝒊𝒋 |𝒊 − 𝒋|
𝒋=𝟏

M1 and M2 both capture one aspect of mobility which is persistence. Furthermore, to capture the extent of upward and
downward mobility (since both M1 and M2 capture only overall mobility), following (Choudhary & Singh, 2019), we
further decompose the overall mobility M1 into M1up and M1down. That is, M1up indicates that the daughter will have
higher education than the mother and M1down indicates that daughters will have lower education than their mothers.

Following (Choudhary & Singh, 2019), we have decomposed the data in the following manner. If the education levels
are ranked in the increasing order, that is, i, j = 1,2,…m, where, i,j = 1 is the lowest education level and i, j = m is the
highest education level, then from (1),

𝟏 𝒊−𝟏 𝟏
∑𝒎
𝒊=𝟏 ∑𝒋=𝒊 𝑷𝒊𝒋+ ∑𝒎 𝒎
𝒊=𝟏 ∑𝒋=𝒊+𝟏 𝑷𝒊𝒋 …………….(3)
𝒎 𝒎
𝒋≠𝒊

That is, using (3), M1 can be written explicitly as an exact total of downward and upward mobility, where M 1down is
the likelihood that the daughter will have lower education than the mother, and M 1up is the probability that the daughter
will have a higher education than the mother.

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3. Results

3.1 Demographic Characteristics of the Study Group

The demographic details of the population of the study (refer to Table 1) show that the majority (45.33 per cent) of
respondents1 were in the age group of 55-59 years. However, 14% of the respondents were in the age group 60-65
years. Furthermore, majority (91.76 per cent) of the daughters were aged between 24-28 years. On the other hand,
most of the mothers (43.96 per cent) were aged between 46-50 years, followed by 42. 58 percent were between 51-55
years and nearly 13 per cent were 55 years or above.

Furthermore, in terms of religion, the majority of (87.09 per cent) of the respondents were from the Muslim religion
and the rest were from the Hindu religion. When we look at social categories, we find that around (92.31 per cent) of
respondents belonged to the OBC category and the rest belonged to the SC/ST and other categories.

Table 1 here

3.2 Descriptive Statistics

Table 2 indicates the educational status of two successive generations in the family i.e., the mother and the daughter.
The data from the study indicates that a large number of mothers were illiterate (60.71 per cent). However, not a single
daughter was illiterate. Furthermore, 35.16 per cent of mothers achieved education only up to the primary level as
compared to only (27.75 per cent) of daughters who studied only till the primary level. Nearly 4.12 per cent of mothers
have secondary level education, followed by 61.81 per cent of daughters. Although we do not find any mothers who
have education above the secondary level, however in the case of daughters, we find that 5.22 per cent of daughters
have completed their higher secondary level education and the same number of daughters (5.22 per cent) have
completed their graduation and above graduation level education (See Figure 2).

Table 2 here

Figure 2: Level of educational attainment among mothers and daughters from weavers’ community, Varanasi

2019-20.

1
In line with the social context of the study, the responses regarding the education of mothers and daughters were
given by the male household head, which is considered the respondent in the study. We have also acknowledged the
limitations of such responses in the ‘Limitation’ section.

10

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 Graduation and above 5.2

Higher secondary 5.2

Secondary 4.1 61.8

Up to Primary 35.2 27.8

Illiterate 60.7

0.0 20.0 40.0 60.0 80.0

Mother Daughter

3.3 Results for Mobility Measures

Table 3, indicates the education transition/mobility matrices among daughters corresponding to their biological
mothers. We find that about 35 per cent of daughters end up with up to primary level education corresponding to their
illiterate mothers. Nearly 53 per cent of daughters end up with secondary-level education corresponding to their
illiterate mothers. Furthermore, 0.04 per cent and 0.05 per cent of daughters respectively end up with higher secondary
and graduation & above level of education corresponding to their biological mothers who were illiterate. We find that
there has been upward education mobility among daughters whose mothers were at least educated till the primary and
secondary levels of education. Further, it has been observed that 71 per cent of daughters end up with secondary level
education and 0.054 per cent end up with graduation or above level education corresponding to their biological
mothers who have up to primary level education. Moreover, we see that 0.06 per cent of daughters end up with higher
secondary level education corresponding to the mothers who have secondary level education.

Table 3 here

The estimated mobility measures for the study population have been presented in Table 4. The mobility measure, M1,
varies between ‘0’ (no mobility at all) and ‘1’ (perfect mobility). The overall mobility from mothers to daughters is
about 0.3. The upward component of this overall mobility is 0.3 which is about 100 per cent of overall mobility and
no downward mobility has been observed.

Table 4 here

11

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3.4 Results from qualitative insights
3.4.1 Enablers in Girls’ Education among Weavers’ Community of Varanasi

3.4.1.1 Expansion, Incentives and Influence of Mass media

The study shows that although the majority of the mothers (60.71 per cent) are illiterate, the majority of the daughters
(61.81 per cent) at least have secondary education (class 10th). One of the key reasons for the escalation in the level
of educational attainment among daughters (with respect to their mothers) found during the study was the systematic
expansion in the institutional capacity (i.e., institutes, teachers, staff etc.) of the Indian education system.

With universalization policies like the Right to Education, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan, etc. the Indian education system
in the last decade has seen a drastic increase in girls’ enrolment in India. These policies provided certain provisions
like ‘neighbourhood schools2’ that allowed girls to attend schools within their vicinity. As shared by a participant in
the study,

“Many of the private schools up to 12 th standard have been opened near our homes now. So, it is easier to
send our girls to those schools, compared to our time. There were very few schools and all those were
government schools and very far from our home”.

Due to the availability of extensive schooling opportunities near the community itself, a higher number of girls
belonging to the weaving communities attend schools, which also resulted in a ‘neighbourhood community effect’.
Community members shared that since many girls in the surroundings are now attending schools, it provides a
conducive social environment and influences more and more parents to send their girls to school too.

In addition to the availability of schools in the neighborhood, Berry (2015) argued that external incentives can
motivate students to involve and participate in educational activities. In recent years the government has also offered
several incentives like fellowships, free laptops, bicycles etc. to promote girls’ education. This has also played an
important role in enhancing daughters’ participation (as compared to their mothers) in the weavers’ communities of
Varanasi. In this line, during the study parents shared that a lot of state government and minority fellowships 3like

2
Section 3 of the Right to Education Act (2010) stipulates that “Every child of the age of six to fourteen years shall
have the right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school till the completion of elementary
education. words, there is no compulsion on the child to seek admission only in the school in his or her
neighbourhood”.

3
Scholarships funded by the Ministry of Minority Affairs, to promote higher education among minority
communities in India.

12

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Maulana Azad Fellowship has provided lucrative options for girls from weaving communities to attend schools. An
interesting narrative was shared by one of the participants in the study,

“My elder daughter studied up to 8th standard and later she was assisting in the sari work
at home. After 3 years, she saw that her friend who was studying in 11 th standard got a
laptop from the chief minister in a public ceremony, just for being passed in the 10 th
standard. This news hurt her a lot. She would often taunt her mother that if she could have
been sent to the Secondary School (which is 2 km away from our home). She could have
also got a laptop. This event was a turning moment for many of the girls. I have even
allowed my other younger girls to study at least 10th standard. So, they cannot blame me if
someone gets a free laptop. Moreover, some other weavers started to send their girls to
Secondary School just to get 10th standard education to get a free laptop. As the government
announced to give laptops every year to those who passed the 10 th standard. Eventually,
the government started giving bicycles to girls. so many of the weavers’ daughters have
got cycles too through the programme”.

Another parameter that helped in promoting the importance of girls’ education among the current generation is the
widening availability and reach of mass media among households associated with the weaving sector. During the
fieldwork, community members shared that in the last decade almost everyone has a television in their homes and
members of the community including women, watch several programmes that promote education among girls. This
has resulted in motivation, hope and higher aspirations among the community. For instance, a community leader
shared,

“Whenever IAS results are out, news channels cover the story of the IAS aspirants and in
the last ten years, many girls have cracked those exams. We, therefore, discuss informally
at our Tea and Pan Shop, the story of those girls and how they cracked the exam. Somehow,
our community’s perception is slightly changing towards girls’ education because of these
stories too”.

Furthermore, those who work for the cause of enhancing girls’ education within the community are praised by
community members and leaders, which directly or indirectly helps in further changing people’s attitudes in favour
of girls’ education. For instance, a local weaver shared,

“In my village, there are two girls who are teaching those girls who cannot afford their
education cost. They were felicitated by a news channel in a programme in Delhi. After
this event, they had also been featured in the newspaper. Later, many villagers and our
senior weavers’ community leaders praise them too. So, I personally believe that due to

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 TV channels directly or indirectly, people's perception is slightly changing in favour of
girls’ higher education”.

3.4.2 Barriers to Girls’ Education among Weavers’ Community of Varanasi

While interrogating the enablers in the intergenerational educational mobility among women from weaving
communities, at the same time it is also important to recognize the barriers in their education to understand the various
reasons for their comparatively low mobility among them.

3.4.2.1 Marriage, Honour and Security issues

The study illustrates that despite the changes in the social environment for girls’ education, their education still remains
indebted to the larger patriarchal structures in the society. Still (2011) argues that girls’ education in India especially
among marginalized communities, is a very risky concept for parents. On one hand, if a girl is well educated, there
are chances of hypergamy, on the other hand, there is a risk of losing control over girls’ mobility and sexuality, which
is often justified through various honour and security codes in society.

In this regard, a local weaver shared that he doesn’t want to send her girls to schools after class eighth because he feels
“Zamana Bahut Kharab hai” (the social environment is non-conducive for girls). He fears that if given a chance to
study, girls will take unfair advantage of the freedom given to them in name of education. He further proclaimed,

“There are few cases in our society who had given some freedom to their daughters in the
name of going to college but their daughters used to go city area with some boys and girls
for fun. But those practices are not acceptable in our society. It then becomes very difficult
for parents to marry such daughters because we are all connected with one another and all
the marriages happen in our community and caste only. So, any bad news spread like a
fire in the forest. Nobody will marry those girls and it happens again and again. giving
freedom and mobility to girls at this age is very dangerous. I have to live in this community
only and marry our daughter here only. Hence, we have to see all the things according to
our community. So, I follow my elder’s advice and I never take any risk to send my
daughter to school.” (M, 45 years).

The study illustrates how patriarchal socio-cultural factors like honour, patriarchal mindset, and religious values
deeply impact the education of girls in the weaving community. During the in-depth interviews, it was found that
parents fear sending their girls for higher education as after marriage the groom’s side does not want the daughters-
in-law to work outside of their homes. Furthermore, due to the increasing violence against women, parents further

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have several security issues that undermine the chance of girls attaining higher levels of education, as higher education
institutes are often far away from their households.

3.4.2.2 Poor Economic Conditions, Occupational Endowment Trap and Health issues

During the study, it was found that women in the weaving communities are often treated as ‘unpaid labour’. The
household weaving work like colouring the thread, and spinning the wheel are often performed by the girls in the
family. In the sari-making process, a lot of work is done by girls of the family, which usually reduces the cost of labour
and production. Further, weaving work often leads to several health problems like musculoskeletal diseases which
leads to several unexpected health expenditures. The poor economic and health conditions among the households
associated with weaving work do not allow girls to attain higher levels of education and they often remain entrapped
in the familial occupation. As shared by a local weaver,

“If we will send our girls to college who will help in household weaving work (for
instance colouring the thread, spinning the wheel, etc.). Much of the work in saree
making process is usually done by our women. obviously, it is unpaid work. But if we
pay for this labour, the cost of producing saree will be high and the benefit will be low.
We, therefore, for this kind of work usually take help from our women, this includes the
young girls to elder grandmother if she is able to do” (M, 45).

4. Discussion and Conclusion

The present study shows that the overall mobility among daughters (vis-a`-vis their mothers) from the study is 0.30.
Hence, only 30 per cent of daughters end up at a different educational level than their mothers. Furthermore, the
distance between mothers’ and daughters’ educational categories is only 0.14. This shows that daughters have not
crossed a substantial category (only 14 per cent) of education compared to their mothers. The study also suggests
certain promising findings, for instance, the study illustrates that there is 100 per cent upward mobility among
daughters and there is no downward mobility. Though the upward mobility is not that significant and can be a result
of extremely low levels of initial educational attainment among mothers. However, it is heartening to see the changes
in the level of educational attainment among daughters compared to their mothers.

The changing dynamics of levels of educational attainment among mother-daughter relations can be attributed to
various governmental policies and incentives that have enabled daughters in the study to attend at least primary level
education. However, the transition in educational attainment becomes quite difficult after secondary education. Only
a limited percentage of daughters have attended any kind of higher education institution, which highlights several
micro-level community-specific problems that pervade higher levels of educational attainment among women from
weaving communities of Varanasi. This high persistence of intergenerational educational mobility among mother-

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daughter relations indicates the abysmal conditions of education among the women of the weaving communities of
Varanasi compared to the national and state average (mentioned in Choudhary & Singh, 2019). Such regional
differences are in line with Majumder (2013) hypothesis that several excluded communities certainly have high
chances of intergenerational persistence of inequalities and hence need special attention through micro-level studies.

The qualitative findings illustrate various community specific socio-economic challenges like norms/values of the
community, poor economic conditions, health issues, and occupational burdens that exist within the weavers’
community and play a huge role in the stagnation of the level of educational attainment among young females after
secondary education in the given context. The social stickiness of patriarchal thought, community honour and marriage
is quite evident among the women in the study.

Furthermore, previous studies argue that the poor economic capabilities and nature of the household occupation can
directly impinge on the education of the daughters (Singh & Pattanaik, 2020; Tilak, 2018). The study illustrates the
impact of occupation and poverty on the educational attainment of young females from the weavers’ community. The
weaving occupation requires immense support from the household especially unpaid labour from women to sustain
their livelihood. Such practices don’t allow young females to attain higher levels of education. This brings forth the
contextualized micro-level issues within the community that are not clearly evident through the macro-level studies.
This is in line with various previous sociological studies as well as predictions made by previous literature on
intergenerational mobility (Choudhary & Singh, 2019) that highlight the impact of socio-economic context on girls’
education.

Considering the findings from the study, some of the critical implications are: 1) There are huge disparities in
educational attainment across India, hence it is important to investigate socio-economic patterns like intergenerational
educational mobility among certain excluded communities through micro-level studies to address the extent of low
mobility and the reasons for the persistence of inequalities among such communities. This study calls for more such
micro-level and mixed methods studies in social mobility research. 2) the study further suggests that factor like social
norms, community values etc. plays an important role in the persistence of intergenerational educational attainment
in girls’ education. Thus, the socio-economic context girls live in, can’t be isolated while investigating the patterns of
changes in the overall intergenerational educational mobility among women. The policymakers and teachers should
develop policies and teaching-learning processes among schools based on the socio-economic context they are situated
3) the study shows that the community and mass media play an important role in reshaping the social attitudes about
girls’ education. Hence, policymakers should leverage the reach of mass media and include community
leaders/members in motivating parents to educate their daughters. 4) Given the high dependence of mothers’ education
on their daughters’ education, policymakers should educate mothers through adult teaching and training programs.

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5. Limitations of the study

This study has utilized a cross-sectional survey design and has excluded females that are currently continuing their
education, which might have resulted in an underestimation of educational attainment among young females from the
weaving community of Varanasi. Also, since the focus of the study is on a particular community, there exists
substantial homogeneity in terms of social caste, class and religion in the study. Therefore, due to the lesser frequency
of respondents from multiple socio-economic categories, it was difficult to bifurcate the mobility matrix along these
lines. Furthermore, since the data is collected through the household head rather than self-reporting by the mothers
and daughters, it might have led to reporting/recall bias. The data in the present study only accounts for the education
among the eldest daughter of the household, who have completed their education. This might lead to under-reporting
of mobility. Data were collected only from handloom and power loom weavers of the Varanasi district, hence any
generalization about the weavers’ community must be made carefully.

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Table: 1 Socio-demographic profile of the study groups

Socioeconomic Variable N (364) Percentage

Respondent age (in Completed Years)

50-54 years 148 40.66

55-59 years 165 45.33

60-65 years 51 14.01

Religion

Hindu 47 12.91

Muslim 317 87.09

Social Category

Schedule caste/tribe 3 0.82

OBC 336 92.31

None of them 25 6.87

Education

No education 159 43.68

Up to Primary Education 182 50

Secondary & above 23 6.32

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Source: Authors’ computations based on the fieldwork data, Varanasi, 2019-20

Table 2: Distribution of weavers of Varanasi by educational categories

Educational Mother Daughter

Categories N % N %

Illiterate 221 60.71 0 0

Up to Primary 128 35.16 101 27.75

Secondary 15 4.12 225 61.81

Higher secondary 0 0 19 5.22

Graduation and above 0 0 19 5.22

Total 364 100 364 100

Source: Authors’ computations based on the fieldwork data, Varanasi, 2019-20

Table 3: Educational transition/mobility matrices of weavers of Varanasi, India

Educational Categories Educational Categories of Daughter

of Mother Illiterate Up to Secondary Higher Graduation

Primary secondary and above

Illiterate - 0.3575 0.5385 0.0498 0.0543

Up to Primary - 0.1719 0.7188 0.0547 0.0547

Secondary - - 0.9333 0.0667 -

Higher secondary - - - - -

Graduation and above - - - - -

Note: (-) indicate value 0

Source: Authors’ computations based on the fieldwork data

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Table 4: Educational mobility measures

S.N. M1 M1up M1down M2

Educational Mobility measures of 0.3 0.3 (100%) 0 (0%) 0.14

Daughters

Note: M1 refers to Overall Education, Mobility, (M1up) refers to upward mobility and (M1down) refers to

downward mobility among weaver’s women.

Source: Authors’ computations based on the fieldwork data

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