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Hema Swaminathan

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Hema
Swaminathan

Professor
Centre for Public Policy

Hema Swaminathan is a Professor at the Centre for Public Policy. Her broad interests are in the areas of poverty and inequality using a gender perspective.

My recent research focuses on inequality in income and wealth distributions between men and women, female labour participation in India, and survey methodology to collect improved data on several domains (individual-level data asset ownership and wealth, decision making by women, and women’s engagement with the labour market). I am co-PI on the India Working Survey that examines labour market experiences (participation, roles, earnings and discrimination) of individuals with marginalized identity using a range of innovative methods. 

I was PI on the Gender Asset Gap project, a comparative study of Ecuador, Ghana and Karnataka (India). Housed in IIMB, the project demonstrated the feasibility of collecting individual-level data on assets and wealth and has generated the first ever estimates of gender asset and wealth gaps. An article from this project was selected for the 2020 special issue of the Journal of Economic Inequality containing a selection of articles published in the Journal which bring economic perspectives and methods to bear on dimensions of inequality highlighted in the Sustainable Development Goals.

I served on the Standing Committee of Economic Statistics (SCES), Government of India, whose mandate is to review the framework for India’s economic indicators pertaining to the industrial sector, the services sector and labour force statistics. I am also member of the Gender Methods Experts Panel of the CGIAR GENDER Platform Methods Module and the Technical Advisory Group for the Engendering Informality Project, International Labour Organisation (ILO). Previously, I have served on the High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE), and co-author of the report on Food Security and Climate Change, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 2011-2012. 

JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS (2015 onwards)

  • Women's Legal Rights and Gender Gaps in Property Ownership in Developing Countries. 2022. Population and Development Review 48 (2), 331-377
  • Contextualizing Individual-Level Asset Data Collection: Evidence from Household Surveys. 2022. The Journal of Development Studies. (with Kaushal Joshi, Arturo Jr M. Martinez, Mildred Addawe, and Christian Flora Mae Soco) doi: 10.1080/00220388.2022.2029417
  • Seasonal Migration and Feminization of Farm Management: Evidence from India. 2022. Feminist Economics, 28:1, 86-113 (with S. Chandrasekhar and Soham Sahoo) doi: 10.1080/13545701.2021.1976808 
    https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3745554# 
  • Women's Land Ownership and Household Income Diversification Patterns in Malawi. 2022. Journal of African Development 1 February 2022; 23 (1): 58–86. (with Marya Hillesland and Caren Grown) doi: https://doi.org/10.5325/jafrideve.23.1.0058
  • Trends in rural fiscal decentralisation in India’s Karnataka state: a focus on public health. 2021. Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, (25), 56-78 (with Megha Rao and Arnab Mukherji) https://doi.org/10.5130/cjlg.vi25.7583
  • Women, assets, and formal savings: A comparative analysis of Ecuador, Ghana and India. 2020. Development Policy Review, 38, pp 180-205 (with Anglade Boaz, Carmen Diana Deere, Cheryl Doss, Abena Oduro, and Suchitra JY) https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12424  
  • Improving health with programmatic, legal, and policy approaches to reduce gender inequality and change restrictive gender norms, 2019. The Lancet, Series on Gender Equality, Norms and Health. Vol 393, Issue 10190, pp2522-2534 (with Heymann, Jody, Jessica K Levy, Bijetri Bose, Vanessa Ríos-Salas, Yehualashet Mekonen, Negar Omidakhsh, Adva Gadoth, Kate Huh, Margaret E Greene, Gary L Darmstadt).
  • Gendered Paths to Asset Accumulation? Markets, Savings, and Credit in Developing Countries, 2019. Feminist Economics, 25:2, pp 36-66, doi:10.1080/13545701.2019.1566753 (with Zachary Catanzarite, Carmen Diana Deere, Cheryl Doss, Abena Oduro, and Suchitra JY)
  • Do men and women estimate property values differently? 2018. World Development, 107 pp 75-86 (with Carmen Diana Deere, Zachary Catanzarite,  Cheryl Doss, Suchitra JY, William Baah-Boateng and Louis Boakye-Yiadom)
  • Assets and Shocks: Gendered Analysis from Ecuador, Ghana and Karnataka, India. 2018. Canadian Journal of Development Studies 39:1, pp 1-18 (with Carmen Diana Deere, Cheryl Doss, Abena Oduro, Suchitra JY and William Baah-Boateng)
  • The effect of paid maternity leave on early childhood growth in low and middle income countries. 2017 BMJ Global Health. pp: 1-11 (with Deepa Jahagirdar, Sam Harper, Jody Heymann, Arnab Mukherji, and Arijit Nandi)
  • Economic Development and Female Labor Force Participation in India. 2016. Feminist Economics, 22 pp: 168-195 (with Rahul Lahoti).
  • Not in Her Name: Women’s Property Ownership In India 2016. Economic and Political Weekly, L1, pp: 17-19 (with Rahul Lahoti and Suchitra JY).

BOOK CHAPTERS

  • Foreword, Equality Within Our Lifetimes: How Laws and Policies Can Close – or Widen – Gender Gaps in Economies Worldwide. Forthcoming 2023. Heymann J, Sprague A, and Raub A. University of California Press.  
  • Promises Unfulfilled: Women’s Access to Land in India. 2019. In India Social Development Report, edited by T. Haque and D.N. Reddy, Council for Social Development, Oxford University Press, New Delhi. (with Suchitra JY)
  • Asset Ownership, 2019. In Karnataka Human Development Report, Government of Karnataka

UNDER REVIEW

  • Ties that Bind: Kinship and Female Enterprise Creation in Rural India, (with Jeroen Smits, Patrick Vermeulen, and Hemalatha Venkataraman)
  • Addressing Gender Disparity in Education: Evidence from India, (with Pragya Bhuwania and Arnab Mukherji)
  • Decision-making in Rural Households: The Role of Self and Proxy Reporting in Karnataka, India (with Suchitra JY and Rahul Lahoti)

The following reflect current and recently taught courses.

Econometrics; Engaging with Africa; Business, Government and Society; Social & Human Development, Development Economics: Theory and Practice, Evaluation of Public Policy; Analysing Data for Social Policy, A Global Perspective on Gender: From Farm to the Boardroom, Gender, Public Policy and Economic Development

 

Prof. Swaminathan has consulting experience with several international organisations on policy matters broadly in the fields of gender and development and collection of sex-disaggregated data. The organisations she has engaged with include the Asian Development Bank, The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, International Center for Research on Women, the World Bank, and the United Nations Development Programme (Regional Centre at Sri Lanka).

AWARDS 

2018 Shireen Lateef Gender Operations Award for Best Gender Knowledge Product (Asian Development Bank), Measuring Asset Ownership and Entrepreneurship from a Gender Perspective: Methodology and Results of Pilot Surveys in Georgia, Mongolia, and the Philippines. (co-authored with ADB-EDGE team)

FELLOWSHIPS

Non-‐Resident Visiting Scholar, Center for Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, May-‐June 2015

Global Scholar, Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, 2014-‐2015

EXTERNAL GRANTS

Social Identities and the Labour Market, Co-Principal Investigator

Initiative for What Works to Advance Gender Equality, 2019-2021

Time Disposition of Women in Rural India; Domestic Duties and Employment, Co-Principal Investigator

Center for Gender Equity and Health, University of California, San Diego 2017-18

Examining the Social Impact of Health Policies in India, Co-Principal Investigator
Sub award from McGill University, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, 2011-17

SPANDAN: Women in Agriculture
Sub award from Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2015-17

Gender Asset Gap Project, Co-Principal Investigator
MDG3 Fund, Dutch Government, 2009-11
Vanguard Charitable Trust, 2010-15
Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India, 2011-13
UN Women, 2013-2015

Malnutrition in Slums, Co-Principal Investigator
Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India, 2011-13

Exploring linkages between women’s property & inheritance rights and their vulnerabilities to HIV/AIDS, and domestic violence in Uganda and South Africa, Principal Investigator
Ford Foundation & Anonymous Donor, 2005-07

Women's property & inheritance rights in the context of HIV/AIDS in South Asia, Principal Investigator
UNAIDS & the Levi Strauss Foundation, 2005-07

EXTERNAL SERVICE 

Associate Editor, Feminist Economics, 2023 –

Member: Editorial Board, Feminist Economics, 2016 –

Member, Institute Ethics Committee, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, 2023 – 

IIMB 

Chairperson, Internal Committee, 2022 – 

Chairperson, Centre for Public Policy, 2018 – 2020 

Internal Committee Member, 2017 – 2020

Admissions Committee Member, 2018 – 2020

Coordinator and Member, CPP-IIMB Institutional Ethics Committee, 2010 – 2019

FPM Committee Member, 2016 – 2019

CPP-FPM coordinator, 2013 – 2018

Creche Committee Member, 2015 –

PhD (Agricultural Economics), The Pennsylvania State University, USA

MSc (Economics), University of Bristol, UK