Aritra Basu

Research

Job market paper

Crossing the Color Line: Race, Place, and Deaths of Despair

October 2026

Abstract

Did the Great Migration and its consequences matter for later mortality? This paper shows that the mortality effects due to the rise in Chinese import competition in the early 21st century were mediated by the racial history of the most affected communities. In particular, the Great Migration of Blacks to Northern industrial cities between the 1940s and 1970s rendered those destinations with the highest migration flows more segregated and more vulnerable to economic shocks, resulting in higher levels of “deaths of despair” among both White and Black men. My findings show that the spatial vulnerabilities were not limited to Black communities, and they also challenge the conventional emphasis on “deaths of despair” among White men.

Publications

Employment in Childcare and Early Education in the United States, 2000–23

With Nancy Folbre · Monthly Labor Review, July 2026

Nancy Folbre and I document the size and composition of the U.S. childcare and early education workforce. We show why employment in the child daycare services industry alone provides an incomplete picture, and identify measurement gaps that complicate assessments of childcare supply.

Published article

Working papers

Before Love Jihad: Communal Violence and Religious Intermarriages in India

Under review at Feminist Economics

I examine how the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat affected religious intermarriage. Using Demographic and Health Surveys data, synthetic control, and synthetic difference-in-differences, I find a decline of approximately 1.4–1.7 percentage points in the share of Hindus who married outside their religion—more than half the pre-riot level. The decline persisted through 2006, with the strongest evidence among Hindu men.

Are All Low-Wage Workers Alike? Heterogeneity in the Post-Pandemic U.S. Labor Market

With Caterina Manicardi and Anamika Sen

My coauthors and I examine whether post-pandemic wage compression benefited low-wage workers equally. We find that care workers were more likely to move within their sector and less likely to move to higher-paying industries. Wage gains associated with job changes also increased less in care occupations, particularly among women.

Read on SSRN

Work in progress

Redirecting Intergroup Antagonism: Caste Networks, Hindu Nationalism, and the Evolution of Hate Crimes in India

Dissertation chapter

I ask whether Hindu nationalist mobilization redirects existing caste antagonisms toward religious minorities. I am building geographically detailed data on caste-based violence from newspaper reports to study changes in the targets of violence and the role of political mobilization.

What Money Can’t Buy: Gender and Substitutability between Income and Unpaid Work in the U.S.

With Nancy Folbre

Nancy Folbre and I examine whether higher earnings and household income are associated with less time spent on unpaid work. We study the limits to substituting money for unpaid work, particularly when care involves personal relationships and responsibilities.