Changing Employment Conditions of the Indian Workforce and Implications for Decent Work

Abstract

This paper analyses recent macro employment trends in India. Analysis of recent data shows increasing informalisation and flexibilisation of labour and challenges the notion that casualisation is the only manner in which flexibilisation and informalisation of labour is occurring in India. It argues that the concern with decent work has to be based on analysis of labour conditions in all major forms of employment. The paper also discusses the main strategies proposed for introducing labour standards and decent work in the Indian context. We argue that in the recent post economic crisis period, there is greater acceptability to improving labour standards and income distribution as a way of sustaining long term growth. This has raised the profile of those Indian initiatives which build upon social and economic rights. Although this paper is based on detailed Indian empirical evidence, the trends that it adduces and its policy implications are of much greater general significance.

Migration, Crises, and Social Transformation in India Since the 1990s

“…These jobs are temporary, precarious and informal in nature. These jobs also require low skill, so they are suitable for a transient, migrant workforce (Shrivastava 2012). Second, urban males have largely captured the higher quality employment (a relatively small proportion of employment).…”

“…In terms of the nature of employment, self-employment and casual labor dominate predominantly in rural areas (about 70% of the total) in 2004-05. In urban areas, selfemployment and casual labor contribute about 60% of the total employment in 2004-05 (Shrivastava 2012). The informal sector contributes to about 92% of the total employment in the Indian economy in 2011-12 (ILO 2016).…”

“…The NSS employment-unemployment surveys show a perceptible increase in the phenomenon of self-employment and casual labor in urban areas, and more broadly nonagricultural work. A lot of this increase in self-employment is the result of the increased work in putting out systems that are characterized as sub-contracting processes (Shrivastava 2012). A significant part of the increase in self-employment is nothing but the outsourcing of work that happened in larger organizations to the poorer migrant households that do not, therefore, have to be covered by labor legislation or any welfare legislations.…”

Child gender and parental borrowing: Evidence from India

“…These gures are consistent with the relatively low fertility rate registered in Tamil Nadu. 2 Indian rural households hardly control their work intensity (NCEUS, 2009;Srivastava, 2011), so that that parents cannot adjust their levels of professional activity to the size of their households. This is con rmed in our data: the household's total work income and number of children are not signicantly correlated.…”

Child Gender and Parental Borrowing: Evidence from India

“…Indian rural households hardly control their work intensity (NCEUS, 2009;Srivastava, 2011), so that that parents cannot adjust their levels of professional activity to the size of their households. This is conrmed in our data: the household's total work income and number of children are not signicantly correlated.…”