Devaki Jain graduated in economics from Oxford University before starting to teach the Honours course in Economics, at the Miranda House, Delhi University. She is a Gandhian, feminist economist and writer on public affairs, with special focus on poverty removal.

She was one of the founders of a wide range of institutions such as Development Alternatives for Women for a new Era (DAWN) - a third world network of women social scientists who provided an alternative framework for understanding the location of advancing the cause of poor women of the South Indian Association of Women's Studies (IAWS), Kali, Feminist Publishing House and Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST) - a research centre in Delhi where she was Director until 1994. She was a member of the erstwhile South Commission, established in 1987, chaired by Dr. Julius Nyerere and various other committees/agencies such as the Advisory Committee for UNDP Human Development Report on Poverty, 1997; the Eminent Persons group associated with the Graca Machel Committee (UN) on the Impact on children of Armed Conflict etc.