An Econometric Analysis of Determinants of Employment Guarantee Scheme

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is the world's biggest Employment Guarantee Scheme, which has been in operation in rural India since 2nd February 2006. In principle, the scheme is a self-targeted programme designed to provide 100 days of employment to rural households in every financial year. This scheme offers employment to adult members of any rural household willing to do public work-related unskilled manual work at the statutory minimum wage. Broadly its aim is to reduce rural poverty through the creation of sustainable rural infrastructure which is expected to foster rural economic growth of India. The present analysis is based upon household level data for which was used to undertake advanced econometric analysis like Logit and simple regression model have been applied to find out what characteristics encourage households to reach out for MGNREGS and what are the factors determining the implementation performance of this scheme. Our study is based on NSSO data (66th round socio-economic survey data) collected during 2009-10. The household level factors identities, namely, occupation and caste/religious identity, sex, age, educational level of the household head, marital status, and the amount of land possessed are used