Dr Garima Sahai

Dr Garima Sahai is a Research Associate at the Department of Geography, a Bye Fellow in Geography, Murray Edwards College, and an Affiliate Researcher at the Department of Sociology.

Garima’s research interests centre on issues of youth, gender, and work in low and lower middle income countries. She is especially interested in interdisciplinary approaches, and the intersections between research, policy, and international development practice. Garima is currently working with Prof. Bhaskar Vira, Prof Pauline Rose and Dame Barbara Stocking to build a Commission on Young People and Work. The Commission aims to bring together key political, business and civil society leaders, practitioners, and researchers to produce a comprehensive set of recommendations to address the pressing issues around youth and work in developing countries. The Commission will focus on the regions of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Garima's doctoral work focussed on young women's entry into non-traditionally female jobs in India. Motivated by the low and declining female labour force participation in India and recognising occupational gender segregation as a key reason for it, the study examined the lived experiences of young women in slums in Delhi and drew out implications for policy. Prior to the PhD at Cambridge, she worked for three years at the World Bank as an Economist and as a Labour and Gender Specialist.

Garima’s current project, the Commission on Young People and Work, could in the coming years positively impact the lives of the world’s most disadvantaged over 3 billion young people. Her research on young women and work in India could positively impact the lives of over 100 million working-age women in India who are unemployed or discouraged.

Garima’s motivation to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals through participation in CGC emanates from her lived observational experience of inequality while growing up in India and her experience at the World Bank.