We greatly acknowledge their efforts in the project and several others who provided their valuable feedback at numerous stages of the project. We are particularly grateful to Deepti Goel, Arjun Jayadev, Rajendran Narayanan, and Anand Srivastava for several discussions and for their comments and feedback. We acknowledge Azim Premji University and the Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives for their support and funding for the project. We are thankful to the staff at the various civil society organizations who conducted the interviews and the numerous student volunteers from Azim

The introduction of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) heralded a methodological innovation for the study of Indian labour, allowing the researcher to build panels tracking urban individuals over a year. Using two rounds of the PLFS covering the periods 2017–18 and 2018–19, we construct a pooled panel of urban Indian individuals aged 15–65 and focus on women’s experiences in the labour force. We find evidence of low dynamism in the Indian economy, with women facing significant difficulties regarding labour force participation. While a majority of women remain outside the labour force throughout the year, those who do participate face significant disadvantages. Job-finding rates for women are half that of men, indicating weak demand for women’s labour in the economy. Women face significant exits from both employment and unemployment, with nearly 18% of employed women leaving their jobs and moving to non-participation over the year. Women’s relative disadvantages persist even when age and education are considered, with the lowest job-finding rates seen for young and graduate women, and rates of labour force exit much higher than that of men. This paper highlights the importance of looking at demand side questions when it comes to examining women’s labour force participation. JEL Codes: J21, J69

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This chapter describes the evolution of the security worker landscape in India and identifies some of the correlates of protective security work. Over the past twenty-four years, protective security work has grown at a rapid pace, particularly in the private sector, although the public sector continues to remain an important employer. Protective security work varies substantially across geographical regions and social identity groups. A typical security worker is noted to be slightly older than the average worker, disproportionately male, and earns higher than average wages if employed in the public sector. The average private security worker, on the other hand, belongs to the “doorkeeper” category and has lower than average wages and skill. Of some of the obvious correlates of the extent of protective services in the labor force, only urbanization appears to be a robust correlate, suggesting that growth in protective service work may be driven by the rapid changes occurring in urban India. We end by considering some welfare implications.