Jeemol Unni

Education and Women's Labour Market Outcomes in India

In this paper, we pose the question: to what extent is education responsible for the differential labour market outcomes of women and men in urban India? In particular, we investigate the extent to which education contributes to womens observed lower labour force participation and earnings than men, and whether any contribution of education to the gender wage differential is explained by men and womens differential educational endowments or by labour market discrimination. Our findings suggest that women do suffer high levels of wage discrimination in the Indian urban labour market, but that education contributes little to this discrimination: the wage-disadvantage effect of womens lower years of education than men is entirely offset by the wage-advantage effect of womens higher returns to education than mens. The data also indicate that, for both men and women, returns to education rise with education level, confirming the findings of other recent educational rate of return studies in India and elsewhere.

Social Protection for Informal Workers: Insecurities, Instruments and Institutional Mechanisms

This paper presents a broad definition of social protection to include basic securities, such as income, food, health and shelter, and economic securities including having income generating productive work. A conceptual framework is developed to analyse the causes of insecurities of informal workers, identify the core needs of social protection, develop instruments and visualize the institutional mechanisms to address the needs. Using evidence from the micro study, the insecurities faced by the workers are shown due to the structural features of the household and the nature of work. The evidence shows that casual labourers and self-employed workers are the most insecure. Further, the institutional mechanisms for delivering social protection for these workers are discussed. [GIDR WP NO. 127]

Globalization and Securing Rights for Women Informal Workers in Asia

The major paradigms of the development discourse have recently incorporated the language of rights. To move from the rhetoric of human rights to concretely elaborate the content of rights for informal workers, particularly women, in Asia is the purpose of this paper. Using a rights-based approach to development, the paper takes up the issue of gender-enabling worker rights in the context of developing economies that are increasingly open to external influences. A matrix of rights consisting of the right to work, broadly defined, safe work, minimum income and social security are identified as core issues for informal workers. Further, we focus attention on four specific groups of informal workers: self-employed independent producers and service workers, self-employed street vendors, dependent producers such as homeworkers and outworkers, and dependent wageworkers. Gender-sensitive micro-economic and macro-economic and social polices are identified for each of these segments of the informal workers. The access to economic, market and social reproduction needs are to be addressed simultaneously to ensure the basic matrix of rights for women informal workers in developing countries. Each of the needs of the workers have to be viewed as a right and a system of institutions or mechanisms that will help to bring these rights to the center of policy have to be worked out. The claim of women and informal workers for a voice in the macro policy decisions through representation at the local, national and international levels is at the heart of the rights-based approach.

Do Economic Reforms InfluenceHome-Based Work? Evidence from India

Abstract This paper analyzes the factors that influence the conditions under which a woman in India participates as a home-based worker using secondary level data at the micro level. At the macro level, the paper analyzes whether trade and industrial liberalization in India led to an increase in subcontracted work, of the home-based variety. The results show a historically high share of women in home-based work, which implies that female participation in such work was more likely to be determined by their cultural milieu than by the recent liberalization process. Further, while the micro model of social determinants appears to fit the female home-based work equation, the macro model is found to be insignificant. The lower but increasing share of male home-based work and the statistical significance of the macro model as a determinant of such work lead us to conclude that the economic reforms in India had a statistically significant impact on this form of production organization among men.

When Home-Based Workers Raise Their Voices: An Indian Perspective

�� he re-emergence of interest in informal-sector issues worldwide has created an environment within which attention can be directed more effectively to the informal economy in developing countries, and to the “new” as well as the “traditional” types of employment (and insecurity) that characterize this work. Developed countries’ renewed concern with informality, probably itself a consequence of their own changing economic structure, has generated new thinking and new data-collection methodologies that can be adapted to study informal workers in very different situations and nations. At the international level, after years of negotiations the International Conference of Labor Statisticians (ICLS) adopted a workable definition of the informal sector in 1993 that has been incorporated into the new System of National Accounts (SNA). The SNA characterizes the informal sector as consisting of units engaged in the production of goods or services with the primary objective of generating employment and incomes for the persons involved. As unincorporated enterprises owned by households, such units form part of the household sector. They are distinguished from corporations and quasi-corporations by their legal status and the type of accounts they hold. These household enterprises do not have any legal status independent of the households or household members owning them. The ICLS definition does not specify the kind of workplace, the extent of fixed assets, the longevity of such enterprises,

Social income and insecurity: A study in Gujarat

Economic liberalisation associated with globalisation is causing a pervasive growth of economic insecurity experienced all over the world. This is placing urgent demands on policymakers to rethink old policies and institutions. This book sets out a new approach to the assessment of income dynamics, based on identifying the diverse components of people’s income and entitlements. It defines ‘social income’ as a broader concept of household income which includes state, community and private benefits. It shows how those components should be measured and provides a composite picture of the structure of incomes and support systems of different societal groups. It recognises how the structure of income, as well as its distribution, has been linked to policy and development dynamics. It starts from a premise that unless the totality of incomes and income support systems is taken into account, academics and policymakers cannot expect to develop appropriate interventions. This perspective is developed though a detailed household survey conducted in rural and urban areas of Gujarat in 2007–2008. This provides an up-to-date picture of how institutions, NGOs and the state system are operating in the context of rapid restructuring of village life in India.

Skill Gaps and Employability: Higher Education in India:

Abstract As India grows into a knowledge economy increasing the use of technology in manufacturing and service industries, the emerging gaps at the level of tertiary education are seen as a major constraint. In this article we address the growing mismatch between skills/education and jobs/occupations. We define types of skill mismatch in the labour market, nature of tertiary education, and occupation and industry, and classify high technology and knowledge-intensive industry (KII). To understand skill gaps we analyse where persons with tertiary education are employed and whether recent years have seen a significant change in the absorption of workers with higher education (HE) in different industry and occupation groups. An analysis of skill gaps in graduate intensity of occupations and high technology manufacturing and knowledge-intensive service (KIS) industry provides a policy perspective and inputs to explore ways to address skill mismatch relating to HE. We conclude that policy that encourages non-graduate technical and non-technical diploma/certificate holders into the lower graduate-intensity occupations would help to close the skill gap and reduce the pressure on graduate HE.