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21. On the importance of triangulating datasets to examine Indians on the move

Author:
S. Chandrasekhar, Mukta Naik, and Shamindra Nath Roy
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
Beyond summing up salient migration trends from existing data sources; a new working paper by researchers from Centre for Policy Research and Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research (IGIDR) builds on a critique of the estimations made by the Economic Survey 2017 to outline fresh ideas for developing leading indicators that will help inform policy. This is particularly needed because even as Indian policymakers are increasingly recognising the linkages between migration, labour markets and economic development, the lack of frequently updated datasets limits our understanding of migration.
Topic:
Development, Migration, Labor Issues, Economy, and Social Policy
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

22. Migrants in construction work: Evaluating their welfare framework

Author:
Shamindra Nath Roy and Mukta Naik
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
More than two decades after the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 and the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Cess Act, 1996 came into force, the efficacy of this framework remains in question. Correctional steps have the potential to extend social benefits to construction workers, especially migrants who face particular vulnerabilities. Available data regarding implementation of the Acts by States presents a picture of overall tardiness and delay with wide variations. States need to ramp up worker registration; data suggests that lowering entry barriers for migrants improves registration and consequently, access to welfare benefits. While collection of cess funds has improved and is broadly proportionate to construction activity, their utilisation remains dismal. States need to think strategically on how to spend accumulated cess funds—especially on housing, occupational health and safety, grievance redressal and legal aid—and sustain welfare provisions over time. Accumulated unspent funds offer an opportunity for big-ticket, one-time expenditures. Examples from some States show that collaboration with civil society organisations could improve outreach, particularly to migrants.
Topic:
Migration, Labor Issues, Legislation, Labor Policies, and Welfare
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Asia

23. Women and Work in India: Descriptive Evidence and a Review of Potential Policies

Author:
Erin K. Fletcher, Rohini Pande, and Charity Troyer Moore
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Sustained high economic growth since the early 1990s has brought significant change to the lives of Indian women, and yet female labor force participation has stagnated at under 30%, and recent labor surveys even suggest some decline since 2005. Using a nationally representative household survey, we lay out five descriptive facts about female labor force participation in India that help identify constraints to higher participation. First, there is significant demand for jobs by women currently not in the labor force. Second, willing female non-workers have difficulty matching to jobs. Third, obtaining vocational training is correlated with a higher likelihood of working among women. Fourth, women are more likely to be working in sectors where the gender wage gap and unexplained wage gap, commonly attributed to discrimination, is higher. Finally, female-friendly policies, including quotas, are correlated with higher female participation in some key sectors. Combining these facts with a review of the literature, we map out important areas for future investigation and highlight how policies such as employment quotas and government initiatives focused on skilling and manufacturing should be better investigated and leveraged to increase women’s economic activity.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Women, Inequality, Economic growth, and Public Policy
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

24. Does Lean Capability Building Improve Labor Standards? Evidence from the Nike Supply Chain

Author:
Greg Distelhorst, Jens Hainmueller, and Richard M. Locke
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
This paper offers the first empirical analysis of the introduction of lean manufacturing as a "capability building" strategy for improving labor standards in global supply chains. Buyer interventions to improve supplier management systems have been proposed to augment existing, and widely deemed insufficient, private regulation of labor standards, but these claims have yet to be systematically investigated. We examine Nike Inc.'s multiyear effort to promote lean manufacturing and its associated high-performance work systems in its apparel supply base across eleven developing countries. Adoption of lean manufacturing techniques produces a 15 percentage point reduction in serious labor violations, an effect that is robust to alternative specifications and an examination of pre-trends in the treatment group. Our finding contradicts previous suggestions that pressing suppliers to adopt process improvements has deleterious effects on labor conditions and highlights the importance of relational contracting and commitment-oriented approaches to improving labor standards in the developing world.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
India

25. The Skills They Want: Aspirations of Students in Emerging India

Author:
Devesh Kapur, Megha Aggarwal, and Namrata Tognatta
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
This report investigates student awareness, interests and aspirations around general and vocational education. Using a survey administered to class 12 students in one district each in Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, and Karnataka, we attempt to gain a better understanding of student aspirations, awareness levels, sources of information, key stakeholders and factors that influence their education and career choices. We then map student interests against sectors that are slated to experience the highest growth in terms of job creation. Our results indicate aspirations of students are largely misaligned with the needs of the Indian economy. It is important to create opportunities, generate awareness about various career options and the respective pathways available to realise career goals. Our findings have implications for policies aiming to improve participation in vocational education and training.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Education, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

26. The Puzzling Decline in Rural Women's Labor Force Participation in India: A Reexamination

Author:
Daniel Neff, Kunal Sen, and Veronika Kling
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Between 2004/2005 and 2009/2010 there was a sharp fall in female labor force participation (LFP) in rural India. Why did this occur? We look at the four standard explanations: that more women in rural areas are now pursuing higher education and are therefore not available for work (education effect), that household incomes are rising quickly enough that there is a tendency for women to withdraw from the labor force to attend to domestic duties (income effect), that employment opportunities for women are decreasing, and that social and cultural factors may be interacting with these three factors and amplifying their effects. Our findings suggest that the decline in rural women's LFP could potentially be due to an income effect and partly due to an education effect. We find no evidence of changes in employment opportunities or of social and cultural interaction effects that could explain the decline in rural female LFP.
Topic:
Economics, Education, Gender Issues, Social Stratification, Labor Issues, and Culture
Political Geography:
India

27. Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia

Author:
Siddharth Kara
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Siddharth Kara's Sex Trafficking has become a critical resource for its revelations into an unconscionable business, and its detailed analysis of the trade's immense economic benefits and human cost. This volume is Kara's second, explosive study of slavery, this time focusing on the deeply entrenched and wholly unjust system of bonded labor. Drawing on eleven years of research in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, Kara delves into an ancient and ever-evolving mode of slavery that ensnares roughly six out of every ten slaves in the world and generates profits that exceeded $17.6 billion in 2011. In addition to providing a thorough economic, historical, and legal overview of bonded labor, Kara travels to the far reaches of South Asia, from cyclone-wracked southwestern Bangladesh to the Thar desert on the India-Pakistan border, to uncover the brutish realities of such industries as hand-woven-carpet making, tea and rice farming, construction, brick manufacture, and frozen-shrimp production. He describes the violent enslavement of millions of impoverished men, women, and children who toil in the production of numerous products at minimal cost to the global market. He also follows supply chains directly to Western consumers, vividly connecting regional bonded labor practices to the appetites of the world. Kara's pioneering analysis encompasses human trafficking, child labor, and global security, and he concludes with specific initiatives to eliminate the system of bonded labor from South Asia once and for all.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Sex Trafficking, and Slavery
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Asia, India, Nepal, and Global Focus
Publication Identifier:
9780231528016
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

28. The Roots of Global Wage Gaps: Evidence from Randomized Processing of U.S. Visas

Author:
Michael Clemens
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
This study uses a unique natural experiment to test a simple model of international differences in workers' wages and productivity. Large differences in wages across countries could arise from several sources. These include barriers to trade in outputs, differences in technology, differences in workers, or differences in the other factors of production accessible in different countries. To measure the relative importance of these sources in one setting, this study exploits the randomized processing of U.S. visas for a group of Indian workers who produce software within a single multinational firm. In this setting, international barriers to trade in outputs, barriers to technology transfer, and all observable or unobservable differences between workers are extremely low. The results indicate that location outside of India causes a sixfold increase in the wages of the same worker using the same technology to produce a highly tradable good. Under plausible assumptions about competition in the industry, this suggests that country-of-work by itself is responsible—in this industry—for roughly three-quarters of the gap in productivity between workers in India and workers in the richest countries. These findings have implications for open questions in labor, growth, international, and development economics.
Topic:
Economics and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
United States and India

29. Globalisation and Labour Markets Policy Issues Arising from the Emergence of China and India

Author:
David T. Coe
Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
Globalisation is having important effects on labour markets in OECD countries. The global supply of labour has increased enormously with the emergence of China and India. At the same time technological advances have contributed to heightened income inequality and changed the nature of globalisation itself, most vividly demonstrated by the rapid growth of offshoring of business services that were previously nontradable. It is argued in this paper that these developments are best characterized as an intensification and broadening of the process of globalisation rather than a fundamental change in the nature of globalisation. They will, nevertheless, have long-lasting effects on OECD labour markets, increasing the urgency of implementing the labour market policies set out in the Restated OECD Job Strategy. The paper concludes that the most important implication of the emergence of China and India in the context of widespread perceptions of increasing economic inequality may be to reduce support for globalisation in OECD countries.
Topic:
Globalization, Labor Issues, Economic Inequality, and Labor Market
Political Geography:
China, India, and Asia