Person:
Das, Maitreyi Bordia

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Fields of Specialization
Demography, Social Protection, Social Development, Human Development, Social Inclusion, Safety Nets, Equity, Labor Markets, Urban Development
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Last updated: April 3, 2023
Biography
Maitreyi Bordia Das is the Director for Trust Funds and Partner Relations in the Development Finance Vice Presidency of the World Bank. Based in Washington DC, she leads the furtherance of the World Bank’s trust fund reform, implementation of the Bank’s policy framework for financial intermediary funds (FIFs) and supports the ongoing World Bank Group Evolution process. Maitreyi is a leading voice to sustainable development, equity and inclusion, with a career that spans government, academia, the UN system and the World Bank. At the Bank, Maitreyi has held several advisory and managerial positions and led numerous research, policy and programmatic initiatives across urban development, resilience, water security, health, social protection and social development. She was the World Bank’s first Global Lead for Social Inclusion, is a speaker at various public forums and has an extensive publications record. In her last position as Manager in the Global Practice on Urban, Resilience and Land, she oversaw and expanded a wide range of trust funded global programs and partnerships. Having started her career as a lecturer in St Stephen's College, University of Delhi, Maitreyi has also been a MacArthur Fellow at the Harvard Center of Population and Development Studies and an advisor to the United Nations Development Program in Guyana. She has a PhD in Sociology (Demography) from the University of Maryland. Before joining the World Bank, Maitreyi was in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS).

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Publication
    Poverty and Social Exclusion in India: Overview
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012) Mehta, Soumya Kapoor; Das, Maitreyi Bordia
    The report’s main objective is to track development outcomes for three select groups - scheduled tribes (STs), scheduled castes (SCs), and women - that have traditionally faced exclusion in India. It asks the question: how did these groups fare over a period of rapid growth in India, primarily in the nineties; and were they able to break through the historically grounded inequalities that have kept entire generations among them trapped or did traps trump opportunities? It focuses on exclusion along three spheres - services, markets, and voice and agency. Within these too, the attempt is to highlight a few select issues that offer new insights. The report draws both on national data (national sample surveys (NSS) and national family health surveys (NFHS)) as well as qualitative work for its evidence, relying more on the latter to probe heterogeneity within states and groups and incipient processes that result in exclusion.
  • Publication
    Does Culture Matter or Firm? Demand for Female Labor in Three Indian Cities
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-02) Mehta, Soumya Kapoor; Das, Maitreyi Bordia; Zumbyte, Ieva; Sasmal, Sanjeev; Goyal, Sangeeta
    In discussing the inordinately low employment of Indian women in urban areas, several studies have argued that culture and attitudes have created a labor market that is inherently discriminatory. The unsaid corollary is that culture is slow and hard to change and so, women will stay out of the labor market until social change occurs. The empirical evidence on the role of culture is slim at best. This paper fills the void in the policy literature, as it assesses the relative role of culture, as signified by attitudes of employers, and firm characteristics in hiring women. The paper is based on a unique survey of 618 firms in three of the largest cities in the state of Madhya Pradesh (India)—Bhopal, Indore, and Gwalior. Using detailed descriptive, bivariate and multivariate analysis at the firm level, the hiring process, and attitudes toward male and female workers, the paper addresses the issue of culture and firm characteristics, while noting that the two are not necessarily in binary opposition. The results reinforce the conventional wisdom in some ways and are surprising in others. The most salient result is that employer attitudes matter much less for the chance that women will be hired, than do firm and location characteristics. This has significant policy implications, the most important of which is that female employment in urban India is amenable to policy intervention, and that it is not necessary to wait for culture to change.