Key Points
Against this background, we conducted a study of women-oriented welfare programmes currently offered by state governments in India (Union territories are excluded from the analysis)..
Although a substantial body of academic research has looked at the economics of specific women-oriented welfare schemes, much less is known about theaggregatenature of the welfare state interms ofits orientation toward women.One question that arises is:Do Indian states focus on particular policy areas?..
We dropped healthcare from our analysis at this stage since so few states opted for it as the primary focus area.. BJPs votesharepredictedstates focus onfinancial assistance very well..
The classification tree model predicted that states where the BJPs vote share was greater than 52 per cent would opt for financial assistance as the primary focus area.Note thatMadhya Pradesh falls in this category..
Female literacy turned out to be the best predictor of states choice of employmentas the primary focus area.The model predicted thatstates where female literacy was between 67 per cent and 77 per cent would opt for employment..
