Professor Uma Kambhampati

I am an applied development economist. Broadly, my interests lie with Gender and Development, Development and Inequalities and Intra-household decision making.

I have worked on a range of socio-economic issues relating to developing countries, both at firm level and at the level of individuals and households. My research relates to inequalities, especially by gender. In recent years, I have worked on

• women’s empowerment and well-being including women’s labour market participation and life satisfaction.
• issues relating to childhood inequalities, particularly in relation to child work and schooling participation, inequalities between girls and boys as well as inequalities across social and religious groups.
• the political economy of welfare provision in India
• firm productivity and industrial growth in developing countries

I have published extensively in all these areas. My research has involved the analysis of relatively large datasets relating to developing countries – India, Bangladesh, Kenya and Indonesia – as well as the UK. These include census data, labour force surveys, consumption surveys and the Demographic and Health Surveys.