[11][12][13] Career Desai joined the University of Maryland College Park in 1994 as a senior assistant professor of sociology and a member of the Center on Population, Gender, and Inequality.
[19][20] Research While at RAND in 1989, Desai and colleagues published a study on the impact of mothers’ employment on the cognitive abilities of their children at the age of four.
[21][22] In 1998, Desai published a cross-national study that reexamined the established observation that, on average, the more education mothers have, the healthier their children tend to be.
The study found that the correlation between education level and health becomes weaker when taking into account local circumstances such as family’s access to running water, toilets, and vaccines.
[25] Using large-scale survey data spanning 20 years, they found that designated scheduled castes saw improved completion of primary school.