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Begin New Search Political Geography South Asia Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University Publication Year within 5 Years

1. Tracking workers across generations – a cohort-based analysis

Author:
Rosa Abraham
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Alongside rapid economic growth, India also saw steady de-agrarianisation of its economy in terms of contribution to GDP. In terms of employment, however, the movement out of agriculture was slower, and when they did exit, it was often a withdrawal from the workforce entirely. In general, more of the workforce are in salaried employment, however, these have filtered differently by gender, caste and religion. While cross-sectional data gives us a sense of how these structural changes affect workers at any given point in time, it cannot tell us how these play out for workers over their lifetime as well as how different generations or cohorts of workers have been affected. Here, we use seven rounds of nationally representative official data to construct cohorts who are tracked over these periods to observe employment participation and the patterns over time. We find that younger generations of women systematically less likely to be in paid employment whereas for men, after a certain age, generations look similar in terms of employment rate. Similarly, when examined from the perspective of cohorts, we find that access to salaried employment has changed by gender and caste, and increase in earnings over time over their lifecycle has slowed for certain groups.
Topic:
Women, Employment, Economic Growth, and Economic Mobility
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

2. Association between Caste and Class in India: Evolution of Caste-Class Dynamics during Economic Growth

Author:
Vaishali Kohli
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Caste and class are two major markers of social and economic stratification in India. They play a crucial role in sustaining and strengthening the process of social exclusion. It has been often expected that the process of economic growth and modernization may weaken the congruence between caste and class structures and induce social and economic mobility, thereby bringing about a change in the socio-economic environment. In this paper, we focus on the celebrated period of high economic growth in India during the previous decade to study the evolution of caste-class dynamics, to analyze the pattern of association between caste and class positions, and to examine whether this association/congruence has weakened during this period. The analysis is based on four rounds of employment-unemployment surveys of the National Sample Survey Organization covering the period 1999-2012. We construct a matrix of caste and class positions of repeated cross-sections of individuals that shows whether different caste groups are over- or under-represented in different class positions and how these representations have changed over time. We then use a multinomial logistic regression framework to capture the role of caste in explaining the conditional probability of an individual to belong to a particular class position, after controlling for other critical explanatory variables. We further examine how the explanatory role of caste has changed over time. Additionally, we explore the role of education, a crucial channel for socioeconomic mobility, in explaining the class positions of individuals belonging to different caste groups over time. Finally, we examine the impact of high economic growth in determining the class position of an individual in general, as well as for different caste groups over time. The analysis shows that caste has continued to remain an important factor in explaining class locations of individuals during the period of high economic growth. Further, the caste-class associations have continued to persist across different categories of education over time. While there has been a partial weakening of certain associations during the period, particularly for the Other Backward Castes and in some parts of the rural sector, the overall picture is more of continuity than change, with further strengthening and reinforcement of caste-class congruence along several axes. This calls into question the 2 expectations about social mobility with economic growth as well as the nature of economic growth in India.
Topic:
Development, Economic Growth, Class, Caste, Social Exclusion, and Social Mobility
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

3. What did they say? Respondent identity, question framing and the measurement of employment

Author:
Rosa Abraham, Nishat Anjum, Rahul Lahoti, and Hema Swaminathan
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
In developing countries, a precise approach to measuring women’s employment remains elusive. Emerging evidence underscores the pivotal role of survey methodology, encompassing respondent selection and question framing, in shaping the assessment of women’s employment. Drawing from two labor market experiments in rural India, this study offers insights on the influence of survey design on the measurement of women’s employment. The first experiment contrasts self-reported women’s and men’s employment figures with proxy-reported data from spouses. Women’s self-reported workforce participation surpasses proxy-reported estimates by six percentage points, while men’s estimates exhibit negligible differences. There are significant differences in the type of employment activities reported by self and proxy for both women and men. These divergences emanate from asymmetric measurement errors, stemming from gender-based norm disparities between spouses, and divergent interpretations of employment. Additionally, information asymmetry between spouses concerning women’s marginal activities and disparities in spousal characteristics contribute to these self-proxy differences. The second experiment investigates if framing of questions and recall period has an impact on reporting of labor market outcomes. We find that employing multiple questions to capture weekly employment status yields a 10-percentage-point increase in reported women’s workforce participation, but men’s participation rate decreases by six percentage points. Furthermore, when a distinct employment query is directed at each day of the preceding week as opposed to a single query for the entire week, reported women’s workforce participation increases by seven percentage points, and men’s by four percentage points.
Topic:
Development, Employment, Survey, Methods, and Gender
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

4. Jobless growth and structural transformation: Some theoretical considerations and empirical evidence from India

Author:
Zico Dasgupta and Amit Basole
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
The decoupling of output growth and employment growth, known popularly as “jobless growth” has been a problem plaguing many countries. Using cross-country data, we show that India has underperformed significantly on job creation compared to the average developing country with lower than average employment elasticities at both the aggregate level and for the non-agricultural sector. Strikingly, we find a one-for-one relationship between output growth and productivity growth in India’s non-agricultural sector, i.e. a Kaldor-Verdoorn coefficient of one. Despite this joblessness of growth, the Indian economy has experienced some structural transformation with the share of the non-agricultural sector and the share of regular wage employment rising at the expense of agriculture and self-employment. We develop a theoretical model which clarifies the relative roles of labour demand and labour supply in determining the output-employment relationship. In this model, the Indian case of some structural transformation even with jobless growth emerges as one case among four possible cases (growth with or without jobs / structural change or no structural change). We conclude with some policy implications.
Topic:
Employment, Economic Growth, Gender, Structural Transformation, and Jobless Growth
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

5. Telephone surveys for data collection – some reflections

Author:
Rosa Abraham and Mridhula Mohan
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Phone-based surveys have emerged as important survey tool with their use increasing particularly during the pandemic-induced lockdowns. However, the use of phone-based surveys comes with concerns around sampling and reporting – the former refers to issues in terms of reaching the intended respondents and adequate representation of different groups while the latter relates to the quality of data collected. Based on a phone-survey of a pre-existing cross-section of households in Karnataka and Rajasthan conducted during the lockdowns of 2020, this paper looks at how sampling and reporting issues play out especially with regard to speaking to women. Access to women, via phone surveys, is limited since most women do not have their own phone, and even if they are reached, they may not have the freedom to respond to all questions asked. We recommend a detailed protocol with multiple callbacks and rescheduling of calls that reduce sampling errors and allow for greater reach of women respondents and minimise discretionary decisions from the enumerators . We also recommend a set of questions to enumerators to help reflect on the quality of data collected. While phone surveys cannot replace in-person surveys, in the event they are used, a well designed protocol along with the use of meta and para data can go a long way in enhancing the quality and reliabilty of the data.
Topic:
Women, Employment, Survey, Methods, and Data Collection
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

6. The Unhappy Marriage of Women’s Work and Spousal Violence in India

Author:
Vijayshree Jayaraman
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Gender-based violence against women is a public health crisis that highlights the persistent gender inequalities present in our society. Informed by theories in several disciplines, spousal violence can be modelled as a multi-faceted phenomenon arising from the intersection of many factors, that may either be a risk or buffer factors. This papers tries to understand if a women’s employment is a risk or buffer factor for spousal violence. We use the NFHS 4 data-set and develop linear probability models to understand the different channels through which employment may change the likelihood of violence. We find that, being employed makes a woman more vulnerable to spousal violence, particularly if the woman earns more than the husband. Adding to that, we find evidence suggesting ‘female guilt’ present in working wives, where they justify spousal violence especially if ‘the wife is unfaithful’. We argue the need to account for different form of violence while studying spousal violence, which has not been studied previously in the literature and present results for the same.
Topic:
Women, Employment, Gender Based Violence, Domestic Violence, and Bargaining
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

7. Estimating the productivity gap between organised and unorganised small-scale units in India’s manufacturing sector

Author:
Amit Basole, Dimple Chopde, and Paaritosh Nath
Publication Date:
06-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Small manufacturing firms are considered to be engines of growth and job creation. While most research on small firms focuses on formal sector units, in India informal sector units far outnumber the formal. This is true even for manufacturing units employing 5 to 49 workers, which constitute only 5% of all unorganised units, but in absolute numbers are nine times more numerous than organised units in the same size class. Such firms have the potential to contribute to structural transformation but their capacities vis-a-vis formal firms are not well understood. To address this, we create a unit-level dataset combining Annual Survey of Industries data for organised (formal) units with the National Sample Survey data on unorganised (informal) units. We also discuss problems involved in this exercise and some ways to deal with them. We find that matching organised and unorganised units on observable characteristics reduces the labour productivity differences between them to around 25 percent. We discuss some policy implications of our results.
Topic:
Employment, Manufacturing, Productivity, and Informal Economy
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

8. Labour Market Flows and Gender Differentials in Urban Unemployment Over the Pandemic

Author:
Paaritosh Nath
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Utilising data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey, we estimate quarterly changes in urban labour market flows over the period 2018 to 2022 and the impact on unemployment rates for men and women. Our analysis provides non-intuitive explanations for established findings as well as pointing out important questions for further study. Both men and women’s unemployment rates have reduced in 2022 compared to 2018, showing rapid reductions following the high levels reached during the lockdown. Women’s unemployment rates have consistently been higher than men throughout this period. The gap between men and women’s unemployment rates reduced during the lockdown, but have shown signs of increasing since 2021, even as unemployment rates have fallen. For women, flows from the labour force to non-participation play a larger role in explaining changes in unemployment rates as compared to men. Flows from the labour force to non-participation, however, have reduced since the pandemic, providing an explanation as to why labour force participation rates have increased, namely, women staying for longer in the labour force rather than more women entering it. Despite rising labour force participation rates, the gender gap in unemployment rates have risen, in contrast to developed economies.
Topic:
Urban, Unemployment, COVID-19, Labor Market, and Gender
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, and Global Focus

9. How Comparable are India’s Labour Market Surveys?

Author:
Rosa Abraham and Anand Shrivastava
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s (CMIE) Consumer Pyramid Household surveys have emerged as an important source of regular labour market data for India. Given the differences in methods in data collection between the CMIE and official employment sources, it becomes exceedingly important to establish some comparability between the government and the CMIE datasets. With the release of the official labour surveys, Periodic Labour Force Surveys for 2017-18, we now have an overlap between the official datasets and CMIE datasets. In this paper, we examine the extent of comparability of labour force estimates from these two datasets. We find that employment estimates for men are broadly comparable. However, for women, there is a consistent divergence with CMIE estimates of women’s workforce participation lower than that of NSS-PLFS. We explore the points of divergence in the measurement of women’s work and hypothesise some potential reasons for this difference. We find that irrespective of the reference period used in the PLFS estimation of employment statuses, there is no convergence with the CMIE employment estimate for women’s employment. Moreover, the mismatch in CMIE-PLFS estimates occurs across all types of women’s employment and irrespective of what reference period of employment (in official data) is used.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Women, and Employment
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

10. Labour incomes in India: A comparison of PLFS and CMIE-CPHS data

Author:
Mrinalini Jha and Amit Basole
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
The Covid-19 pandemic has created a need for high frequency employment and income data to gauge the nature and extent of shock and recovery from month to month. Lack of such high frequency household-level data from official sources has forced researchers to rely almost entirely on the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS) conducted by the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE). Recently, the CPHS has been criticised for missing poor and vulnerable households in its sample. In this context, it becomes important to develop a detailed understanding of how comparable CPHS estimates are to other more familiar sources. We examine the comparability of monthly labour income estimates for the pre-pandemic year (2018-19) for CPHS and the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS). Across different methods and assumptions, as well as rural/urban locations, CPHS mean monthly labour earnings are anywhere between 5 percent to 50 percent higher than corresponding PLFS estimates. In addition to the sampling concerns raised in the literature, we point to differences in the way employment and income are captured in the two surveys as possible causes of these differences. While CPHS estimates are always higher, it should also be emphasized that the two surveys agree on some stylized facts regarding the Indian workforce. An individual earning INR 50,000 per month lies in the top 5 percent of the income distribution in India as per both surveys. Second, both PLFS and CPHS show that half the Indian workforce earns below the recommended National Minimum Wage.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Survey, Data, COVID-19, and Income
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

11. Loss, Recovery and the Long Road Ahead: Tracking India’s Informal Workers Through the Pandemic

Author:
Paaritosh Nath, Nelson Mandela, and Aishwarya Gawali
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
Drawing on results from a panel of 2778 workers interviewed during and after the 68-day hard lockdown imposed in India, the following study examines the livelihood impact of the pandemic and the extent of subsequent recovery or lack thereof. Focussing specifically on workers located in the informal economy, the study is a useful addition to the burgeoning body of work on the economic impacts of Covid-19 by providing an insight into the employment and earnings recovery of those located at the margins. These findings are spliced across socio-economic groups to showcase the differential impact of the pandemic on different demographics within the informal sector. Our results show that six months after the hard lockdown, one out five persons were still out of work. Conditioned on being employed prior to the lockdown and having lost work during the lockdown, we find that urban respondents, women, workers above sixty and graduates were significantly less likely to recover from the shock. A similar exercise carried out for women workers showed that middle aged women, never married women and women who were not-literate women or educated up until primary and middle school were significantly more likely to recover from job loss. Older women, those located in urban areas and Muslim women were on the other hand significantly less likely to recover from the job loss. Earnings on the whole were half of what they used to be prior to the pandemic. Some better off workers shifted to more precarious types of employment. Given the fall in earnings poorer worker households were forced to borrow and the amount of loan taken was multiple times their average monthly income. In the context of loss in employment and reverse migration, the survey results show a substantial unmet demand for work under the MGNREGA programme even after the lockdown was lifted. We conclude that despite a partial recovery in the subsequent period, the pandemic induced lockdown has undermined the material conditions for subsistence for a large segment within the informal economy. Moreover, any attempts made to re-imagine what a social protection programme for the informal economy should look like must take into account the segments most susceptible to an economic shock on their livelihoods.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Employment, Survey, COVID-19, and Informal Economy
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

12. Did the nation-wide implementation of e-FMS in MGNREGS result in reduced expenditures? A re-examination of the evidence

Author:
Deepti Goel, J. V. Meenakshi, and Zaeen De Souza
Publication Date:
08-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
This paper revisits a part of the analysis by Banerjee et al. (2020), in which they examine the consequences of the nation-wide scale up of reforms to the funds management system (e-FMS) in India’s national workfare programme, using a two-way fixed effects specification. They report a substantial 19 percent reduction in labour expenditures. We exploit the recent literature that highlights the limitations of the TWFE estimator in the presence of staggered roll out and effect a Goodman-Bacon decomposition of the TWFE coefficient, to pinpoint sources of identifying variation. We undertake a detailed examination of subsamples of six constituent and valid DiDs based on timing of treatment that are averaged into the TWFE coefficient to identify heterogeneity in treatment effects. This disaggregated subsample analysis does not support the conclusion of any reductions in MGNREGS labour expenditures, suggesting that the TWFE coefficient based on the full sample is indeed biased.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Governance, Public Finance, and E-Government
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

13. Who was Impacted and How? Covid-19 Pandemic and the Long Uneven Recovery in India

Author:
Mrinalini Jha and Rahul Lahoti
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University
Abstract:
We investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on income levels, poverty, and inequality in both the immediate aftermath and during the long uneven recovery till December 2021 using high-frequency household survey data from India. We find that the average all-India household income dropped between 30 to 38 percent during the months of the nationwide lockdown of April and May 2020. The subsequent recovery remained incomplete and was unevenly spread over the population even twenty-one months after the start of the pandemic. Households on an average continued to make 16 to 19 percent lower cumulative income in the post-lockdown period, but have mostly recovered after the second wave in the second half of 2021. Poverty more than doubled during the lockdown and was 50 to 80 percent higher in the post-lockdown period in comparison to the pre-pandemic levels. In the post-second-wave phase, poverty was still slightly higher than in the pre-pandemic period, and any progress in poverty reduction that would have been achieved under normal circumstances over the two years was lost. Inequality too spiked during the lockdown, but returned back to the pre-pandemic levels. Using an event study model we find that the initial shock of the lockdown was more severe for the bottom of the income distribution, but the bottom also experienced a faster recovery. On the other hand, the top end of the distribution experienced smaller declines during the lockdown but they have been slow to recover. The bottom deciles in any period typically constituted households working in contact-intensive, informal, less secure occupations that were hit the hardest during the lockdown, but were quick to recover when the economy opened up. The upper end of the distribution constituted households working in less contact-intensive, formal, secure occupations that were shielded from the sudden shock but were slow to recover.
Topic:
Poverty, Employment, COVID-19, Economic Recovery, and Income
Political Geography:
South Asia and India