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Faculty profiles
Hema Swaminathan

Hema
Swaminathan

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Professor
Public Policy
On leave
11 December 2023 to 10 December 2025
Connect with Faculty
hema.swaminathan@iimb.ac.in

Summary

Hema Swaminathan is a Professor at the Centre for Public Policy. Her broad interests are in the areas of poverty and inequality using a gender perspective.

Accomplishments

I am on leave from IIMB and currently Senior Economist (Gender), Asian Development Bank, Manila. My research focuses on inequality in income and wealth distributions between men and women, female labour participation in India, and survey methodology to collect improved data on several domains (individual-level data asset ownership and wealth, decision making by women, and women’s engagement with the labour market).

I was co-PI on the India Working Survey that examines labour market experiences (participation, roles, earnings and discrimination) of individuals with marginalized identity using a range of innovative methods. I was PI on the Gender Asset Gap project, a comparative study of Ecuador, Ghana and Karnataka (India). The project demonstrated the feasibility of collecting individual-level data on assets and wealth and has generated the first ever estimates of gender asset and wealth gaps. An article from this project was selected for the 2020 special issue of the Journal of Economic Inequality containing a selection of articles published in the Journal which bring economic perspectives and methods to bear on dimensions of inequality highlighted in the Sustainable Development Goals.

I served on the Standing Committee of Economic Statistics (SCES), Government of India, whose mandate is to review the framework for India’s economic indicators pertaining to the industrial sector, the services sector and labour force statistics. I am also member of the Gender Methods Experts Panel of the CGIAR GENDER Platform Methods Module and the Technical Advisory Group for the Engendering Informality Project, International Labour Organisation (ILO). Previously, I have served on the High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE), and co-author of the report on Food Security and Climate Change, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 2011-2012.

JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS (2020 onwards)

  • What did they say? Respondent identity, question framing, and the measurement of employment. Forthcoming, The World Bank Economic Review (with Nishat Anjum, Rahul Lahoti and Rosa Abraham)  
  • Who Is Responding? Spousal Perspectives on Agricultural Decision‐Making in India. 2025. Journal of Agrarian Change, (with Suchitra JY and Rahul Lahoti). 
  • Does It Matter Who You Ask For Time Use Data?. 2025. The World Bank Economic Review (with Deepti Sharma and Rahul Lahoti)
  • Women’s education through empowerment: Evidence from a community-based program. 2024. World Development Perspectives, 33, (with Pragya Bhuwania and Arnab Mukherji).
  • Women's Legal Rights and Gender Gaps in Property Ownership in Developing Countries. 2022. Population and Development Review 48 (2) (with Isis Gaddis and Rahul Lahoti), 331-377
  • Contextualizing Individual-Level Asset Data Collection: Evidence from Household Surveys. 2022. The Journal of Development Studies. (with Kaushal Joshi, Arturo Jr M. Martinez, Mildred Addawe, and Christian Flora Mae Soco) doi: 10.1080/00220388.2022.2029417
  • Seasonal Migration and Feminization of Farm Management: Evidence from India. 2022. Feminist Economics, 28:1, 86-113 (with S. Chandrasekhar and Soham Sahoo) doi: 10.1080/13545701.2021.1976808
    https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3745554#
  • Women's Land Ownership and Household Income Diversification Patterns in Malawi. 2022. Journal of African Development 1 February 2022; 23 (1): 58–86. (with Marya Hillesland and Caren Grown) doi: https://doi.org/10.5325/jafrideve.23.1.0058
  • Trends in rural fiscal decentralisation in India’s Karnataka state: a focus on public health. 2021. Commonwealth Journal of Local Governance, (25), 56-78 (with Megha Rao and Arnab Mukherji) https://doi.org/10.5130/cjlg.vi25.7583
  • Women, assets, and formal savings: A comparative analysis of Ecuador, Ghana and India. 2020. Development Policy Review, 38, pp 180-205 (with Anglade Boaz, Carmen Diana Deere, Cheryl Doss, Abena Oduro, and Suchitra JY) https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12424  

WORKING PAPERS

BOOK CHAPTERS

  • Individualising wealth and asset measures in the Global South: Challenges and new directions for research. 2024. A Research Agenda for Financial Resources within the Household, 113-127 (with Abena Oduro)
  • Foreword, Equality Within Our Lifetimes: How Laws and Policies Can Close – or Widen – Gender Gaps in Economies Worldwide. 2023. Heymann J, Sprague A, and Raub A. University of California Press. 
  • Promises Unfulfilled: Women’s Access to Land in India. 2019. In India Social Development Report, edited by T. Haque and D.N. Reddy, Council for Social Development, Oxford University Press, New Delhi. (with Suchitra JY)
  • Asset Ownership, 2019. In Karnataka Human Development Report, Government of Karnataka

The following reflect current and recently taught courses.

Econometrics; Engaging with Africa; Business, Government and Society; Social & Human Development, Development Economics: Theory and Practice, Evaluation of Public Policy; Analysing Data for Social Policy, A Global Perspective on Gender: From Farm to the Boardroom, Gender, Public Policy and Economic Development

 

EXTERNAL SERVICE

  • Associate Editor, Feminist Economics, 2023 –
  • Member: Editorial Board, Feminist Economics, 2016 –
  • Member, Institute Ethics Committee, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, 2023 – 2024

IIMB

  • Chairperson, Internal Committee, 2022 – 2023
  • Chairperson, Centre for Public Policy, 2018 – 2020 
  • Internal Committee Member, 2017 – 2020
  • Admissions Committee Member, 2018 – 2020
  • Coordinator and Member, CPP-IIMB Institutional Ethics Committee, 2010 – 2019
  • FPM Committee Member, 2016 – 2019
  • CPP-FPM coordinator, 2013 – 2018
  • Creche Committee Member, 2015 – 2022

Prof. Swaminathan has consulting experience with several international organisations on policy matters broadly in the fields of gender and development and collection of sex-disaggregated data. The organisations she has engaged with include the Asian Development Bank, The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, International Center for Research on Women, the World Bank, and the United Nations Development Programme (Regional Centre at Sri Lanka).

PhD (Agricultural Economics), The Pennsylvania State University, USA

MSc (Economics), University of Bristol, UK

AWARDS 

2018 Shireen Lateef Gender Operations Award for Best Gender Knowledge Product (Asian Development Bank), Measuring Asset Ownership and Entrepreneurship from a Gender Perspective: Methodology and Results of Pilot Surveys in Georgia, Mongolia, and the Philippines. (co-authored with ADB-EDGE team)

FELLOWSHIPS

Non-‐Resident Visiting Scholar, Center for Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania, May-‐June 2015

Global Scholar, Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, 2014-‐2015

EXTERNAL GRANTS

Social Identities and the Labour Market, Co-Principal Investigator

Initiative for What Works to Advance Gender Equality, 2019-2021

Time Disposition of Women in Rural India; Domestic Duties and Employment, Co-Principal Investigator

Center for Gender Equity and Health, University of California, San Diego 2017-18

Examining the Social Impact of Health Policies in India, Co-Principal Investigator
Sub award from McGill University, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, 2011-17

SPANDAN: Women in Agriculture
Sub award from Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2015-17

Gender Asset Gap Project, Co-Principal Investigator
MDG3 Fund, Dutch Government, 2009-11
Vanguard Charitable Trust, 2010-15
Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India, 2011-13
UN Women, 2013-2015

Malnutrition in Slums, Co-Principal Investigator
Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India, 2011-13

Exploring linkages between women’s property & inheritance rights and their vulnerabilities to HIV/AIDS, and domestic violence in Uganda and South Africa, Principal Investigator
Ford Foundation & Anonymous Donor, 2005-07

Women's property & inheritance rights in the context of HIV/AIDS in South Asia, Principal Investigator
UNAIDS & the Levi Strauss Foundation, 2005-07

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