  The UN states that inequalities are determined along with income by other
factors - gender, age, origin, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation,
class, and religion. India, since the ancient period, has socio-political
stratification that induced socio-economic inequality and continued till now.
There have been attempts to reduce socio-economic inequality through policy
interventions since the first plan, still there are evidences of social and
economic discrimination. This paper examines earning gaps between the forward
castes and the traditionally disadvantaged caste workers in the Indian labour
market using two distinct estimation methods. First, we interpret the
inequality indicator of the Theil index and decompose Theil to show within and
between-group inequalities. Second, a Threefold Oaxaca Decomposition is
employed to break the earnings differentials into components of endowment,
coefficient and interaction. Earnings gaps are examined separately in urban and
rural divisions. Within-group, inequalities are found larger than between
groups across variables; with a higher overall inequality for forward castes. A
high endowment is observed which implies pre-market discrimination in human
capital investment such as nutrition and education. Policymakers should first
invest in basic quality education and simultaneously expand post-graduate
diploma opportunities, subsequently increasing the participation in the labour
force for the traditionally disadvantaged in disciplines and occupations where
the forward castes have long dominated.
