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11. Inequalities in the Gendered Labour Market: What can be Done?

Author:
Santosh Mehrotra
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Globally, research has shown that, there is a high correlation between the level of per capita income and the rate of female labour force participation. At the same time the agency and autonomy of women in a country improve with the level of female labour force participation. Sen (2000) has argued that the autonomy and agency of women in a society and their empowerment is enabled by four conditions in their lives. First the higher the education level of women, the more empowered they are likely to feel. Second, if they are working outside the home, they are likely to feel a sense of autonomy and empowerment. Third, they should also have an independent source of income from that of the significant other in their household. Finally, their empowerment can be usually enhanced if they own assets and have access to them. One can see from this analysis that the first three requirements for women’s’ empowerment are related to each other and to some extent co-dependent. We will keep these considerations in mind as we analyse labour markets and how women engaged with them in different parts of the world.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Education, Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Women, Employment, and Inequality
Political Geography:
India

12. How Comparable are India’s Labour Market Surveys?: A comparison of NSS, Labour Bureau and CMIE Estimates

Author:
Anand Shrivastava and Rosa Abraham
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
With the lack of official government data on unemployment and other labour market indicators, the most viable and recent source have been the regular household surveys conducted by the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE). Given the differences in methods in data collection, it becomes exceedingly important to establish some comparability between the government and the CMIE datasets. This paper attempts to do that using two methods. First we fit a model of employment status on the CMIE data and see how well it predicts outcomes in the older Labour Bureau 2015-16 and NSS 2011-12 data. Then we compare state-level estimates of broad labour market indicators from CMIE 2016 and Labour Bureau 2015-16 datasets. The broad results are that despite differences in methodologies, the estimates for men are quite comparable between the surveys, while measures of women’s participation in the labour force seem particularly sensitive to the way questions are asked in surveys.
Topic:
Economics, Labor Issues, Work Culture, Labor Policies, and Participation
Political Geography:
India

13. Towards higher female work participation in India: what can be done?

Author:
Santosh Mehrotra and Sharmistha Sinha
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
A continuous and sharp decline in the already depressed female labour force participation rate in India post 2005, particularly in the face of its rapid economic growth raises questions about the inclusiveness of the growth process. The paper recommends a set of policies based on the analysis of the nature and trends of female work participation and a brief analysis of the underlying reasons behind such trends. Women are moving out of the low productivity agricultural sector, which necessitates an increase in employment opportunities in the nonagricultural sector, particularly in rural and in semi-urban locations. Improving skills for employability, especially in manufacturing clusters (which is where the jobs are) located close to young girls’ rural homes, would help the females to join the labour force if non-agricultural jobs are growing. To release women from unpaid work in the household to join the paid labour force, it is essential to improve child care facilities and other basic service facilities, which again calls for raising the share of public expenditure in some sectors and specific facilities. For instance, increasing single working women’s housing, making public transport safer, and modifying public programmes to cater to women’s needs can pave the way for more women to engage and remain in the labour force, become active participants in the growth process, and thus achieve greater economic empowerment.
Topic:
Economics, Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Women, and Employment
Political Geography:
India

14. The Evolving Discourse on Job Quality- From Normative Frameworks to Measurement Indicators: The Indian Example

Author:
Divya Prakash and Sabina Dewan
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Indians are optimistic. According to the Pew Research Center’s 2017 Global Attitudes Survey, three out of four Indians believe that, “when children today in India grow up, they will be better off financially than their parents” (Pew Global Attitudes Survey, 2017). Families hinge their hopes on the ability of the next generation to work hard, earn a living, and be a source of financial support. For years now, the nation has done the same, pinning its economic ambitions to a demographic advantage, or youth bulge, that is set to continue only for the next two decades. Unless there are pathways to productive and high-quality employment, the nation’s youth will not be able to deliver on these expectations. How has India’s economy fared on job creation over the past decade? The country had just under 466 million people in the labour force1 in 2015, with a participation rate of 50.3 percent (Labour Bureau, 2015/16). An analysis of Labour Bureau data over a period of four years from 2012 to 2015 shows that on average, 4.75 million people were added to the labour force per year. According to the Labour Bureau’s Employment-Unemployment survey, between 2012 to 2015, the economy generated a total of 9 million jobs, based on Usual Principal Status -- the activity that an individual is engaged in for a major part of the reference year (Labour Bureau, 2011/12 to 2015/16).
Topic:
Economics, Labor Issues, Employment, Work Culture, and Job Creation
Political Geography:
India

15. China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: Geo-political Implications, Regional Constraints and Benefits of CPEC

Author:
Umar Farooq and Asma Shakir Khawaja
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
South Asian Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
The article is intended to find out the geopolitical implications, regional constraints and benefits of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Researcher reviewed both published research articles and books to find out geopolitical implication, regional constraints and benefits of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. For this purpose, researcher also reviewed newspapers articles and published reports by government and non-governmental stakeholders working on CPEC. Review of the articles and reports indicated that CPEC had enormous benefits not only for China and Pakistan but also for the whole region. But different internal and external stakeholders are not in favor of successful completion of this project. Extremism, sense of deprivation, lack of political consensus, political instability are some of the internal constraints. On the other hand, Afghanistan, India, Iran, UAE and USA are posing constraints to halt the successful completion of CPEC.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, Violent Extremism, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Iran, South Asia, India, Asia, Punjab, United Arab Emirates, and United States of America

16. Validating India's GDP Growth Estimates

Author:
Arvind Subramanian
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
My recent research paper “India's GDP Mis-estimation: Likelihood, Magnitudes, Mechanisms, and Implications,” (hereafter “GDP paper”) and the associated op-ed in the Indian Express on June 11, 2019 have generated considerable debate. This is encouraging because serious argument and counter-argument are the basis for good policy-making. Since the issue itself is of great importance, the counter-arguments to my analysis warrant a considered response. That is the aim of this note, which is a complement to the original paper, addressing both the larger issues and some of the specific points that have been raised. The note is structured as follows. Section II describes my engagement with India’s GDP estimation when I was Chief Economic Adviser. Section III elaborates on the framework/approach underlying the GDP paper. Section IV makes explicit the key puzzle surrounding India’s growth estimates, and addresses the possible explanations for it. Section V explores the puzzle in greater detail. Section VI provides additional cross-country evidence on growth and price deflators, which support the findings of the original paper, namely that growth during 2011-16 was likely overestimated by a significant margin. Section VII addresses two broad objections to the main findings. Section VIII discusses some of the methodological critiques of the paper. Section IX offers some thoughts on the way forward.
Topic:
Economics, Political Economy, International Development, and Economic growth
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

17. The Game for Regional Hegemony: China's OBOR and India's Strategic Response

Author:
Anshuman Rahul
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:
Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:
The OBOR initiative of China often termed as ‘Modern-day Silk Road’ is based on President Xi Jinping’s epic vision to make ‘China Great Again’ by reviving the Silk Route of ancient times. This initiative aims to engage Eurasia economically by creating a network of infrastructure. In this regard, the article attempts to understand the geo-politics behind India’s refusal to join OBOR and strategic response to counter the most appealing economic engagement of the present era but considered to be a debt-trap by India.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Military Strategy, and Silk Road
Political Geography:
China, India, and Asia

18. From India to Europe: The Production of the Kashmir Shawl and the Spread of the Paisley Motif

Author:
Ben Skarratt, Scarlett Mansfield, and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
08-2018
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
In the second half of the eighteenth century, a new garment entered European fashion. Noted for being exceptionally soft, warm, and light, it bore intricate patterns unlike anything Europeans had encountered before or had produced domestically. This product, a woollen shawl, originated in a region that would become so famous for its textiles that its name would pass into Western lexicons as a toponym for its woollen produce: Kashmir. The principal motif found on these shawls, known in India as the Buta, or kairi, would come to be called, in its altered form, Paisley in the West. Not only was the garment practical and aesthetically pleasing, its oriental origins, clear status as a luxury item, texture, and patterning enabled it to permeate European high fashion. Patronage by Empress Josephine of France, and later Queen Victoria, solidified this popularity. By the turn of the nineteenth century, Kashmir and the West regularly traded these textiles. A European industry, aimed at copying Indian originals, also thrived. The next six decades witnessed fervent European consumption of the shawl. This rapid consumption resulted in a host of changes to the production and designs of the garments. While the history of the shawl and its relationship to the West has been subject to distortion, hyperbole, and fiction, recent scholarship has made considerable headway in demystifying information about these products. It is now possible to relate how the Kashmir shawl first came into production, its emergence onto the world stage as a luxury textile, and its status as the principal medium by which the Buta/ Paisley motif entered into the pantheon of historic fashion designs.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Capitalism, and Commodities
Political Geography:
Europe and India

19. Long-Run Performance of the Organised Manufacturing Sector in India: Aggregate Trends and Industry-level Variation

Author:
Amay Narayan and Amit Basole
Publication Date:
05-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Despite its weak performance in terms of job creation in recent years, the organised manufacture sector remains vital to employment policy. This paper investigates the aggregate trends in this sector, in employment, output, labour-capital ratio, as well as wage share and wage rates at the three-digit NIC level over a long period from 1983 to 2016 using the Annual Survey of Industries data. We show that three distinct sub-periods can be identified within the overall period. Further, using shift-share decomposition we show that most of the decline in the L/K ratio can be explained by within industry changes. Finally, we analyse industries with respect to their capacity to deliver job growth as well as wage growth.
Topic:
Economics, Employment, Economic growth, and Manufacturing
Political Geography:
India

20. Changes in Production Regimes and Challenges to Collective Bargaining: A study of the Gurgaon Industrial Belt

Author:
Amit and Nayanjyoti
Publication Date:
05-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
This study focuses on the Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera-Bawal-Tapukara-Neemrana industrial belt in Haryana and Rajasthan, which is an important ‘node’ or part of Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) and a major destination of capital in the last few decades. The study is based on primary survey work of qualitative nature of over 6 months from September 2017 to March 2018. Primary respondents are workers of different segments, plant-level Trade Union leaders and Trade Union activists of the belt, with some inputs from secondary literature, workers magazine and data published by the companies and the government. The attempt to integrate Indian economy with global production networks (GPNs) in the postliberalization period seems partially successful here in this belt, particularly in capital and technologyintensive automobile sector, labour-intensive garment sector and service sector like IT/ITES. But along with industrial growth, this development story has its own underbelly – labour – with crises of jobs, poor working conditions, informalization of regular work, capital-labour conflicts (sometimes of irreconcilable nature) and dismantling of collective bargaining mechanism, pro-capital mediating institutions and labour law enforcement processes. For our study, our main focus has been the auto-belt, which incidentally has also been a prominent centre of most militant labour unrests of our country in last two decades. This study looks into the transformation of production and labour regime and the consequent challenges before the collective bargaining mechanism and institutions to explain the worsening employment conditions despite growth, and the root of industrial conflicts.
Topic:
Economics, Labor Issues, Employment, Unions, and Industrialization
Political Geography:
India