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Authors
Affiliations
1 Centre for Computational Social Sciences, University of Mumbai, Vidyanagari, Kalina, Santa Cruz (East), Mumbai 400 098, IN
2 Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development, Pune, IN
3 Department of Economics, SIES College of Arts and Science, Sion, Mumbai, IN
Source
Artha Vijnana: Journal of The Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Vol 50, No 4 (2008), Pagination: 410-432
Abstract
The middle class is often seen as the backbone of the market economy as well as democracy. However, the concrete processes through which the middle class takes on shape are still rather ambiguous. This paper argues that a key to the emergence of the middle class lies in the historical process by which some groups underwent a demographic transformation: delayed age at marriage, lower fertility and higher degrees of human capital formation as compared to other social groups. This paper examines in particular how a quintessential middle class community, the chitpavan Brahmins of Maharashtra, underwent a transformation in the age at marriage for women, between 1900 and 1950 in Maharashtra, and links it to larger ideological concerns over and above the usual material forces that shape demographic behaviour. The paper points to the importance of ideology and culture in understanding long term processes of demographic change that are often neglected by formal and a historical accounts in neoclassical models of demographic behaviour.
