The Effects of Education on Poverty Reduction in India: StrivingTowards Sustainable Development

Abstract

Education is crucial for the development of a nation. Education is a multidimensional process; it helps to enhance skills and human capabilities, promote human rights, reduce inequalities and crime, and enhance economic growth. The United Nations (UN) recognized the need to promote education and alleviate poverty. The UN set two significant Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), i.e., SDG 1 and SDG 4, to reduce poverty at all levels and to ensure inclusive and equitable education, respectively. These SDGs were introduced in 2015; the world has already passed seven years. But, still, in developing countries (like India), a large portion of the population continues to live in poverty. In this context, it is important to investigate the effects of education on poverty reduction in India. Here, time series data on poverty reduction and education for India are gathered from various secondary sources such as articles, databases (mainly from the World Bank database), journals, websites, etc. relating to the time period from 1991 to 2020 to ascertain whether education has effects on the reduction of poverty or not. Here, the Johansen cointegration test, VECM, and Wald tests are applied to ascertain whether education has any long- and short-run effects on the reduction of poverty or not. This study found that education has long-term effects on poverty reduction in India.