Are Gender Differentials in Educational Capabilities Mediated through Institutions of Caste and Religion in India?

In this paper, with empirical data, the Capabilities Approach to identify 'conversion factors' that are not typically addressed in the utility approach is used. The two approaches are juxtaposed to examine how institutions such as caste and religion mediate access and returns to education of men and women. The effort is to discuss whether, the capabilities approach provides any advantage in addressing questions of inequity that may be mediated through such institutions. The main innovation in this paper is a comparison between the knowledge generated through use of traditional data sources to measure access and returns to education compared with knowledge about the dynamics of capability formation generated through a mixture of traditional quantitative and some qualitative data within the capabilities approach.