Globalization, Labor Markets and Inequality in India

Globalization, Labor Markets and Inequality in India

Author: Dipak Mazumdar

Publisher: IDRC

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 0415436117

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India's increased exposure to world markets and relaxation of domestic controls has given a spurt to the GDP growth rate, but its impact on poverty, inequality and employment have been controversial. This book examines these aspects of the post-reform scene, discerning the changes in trends which the new developments have created.


Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India

Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India

Author: Rina Agarwala

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-04-08

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1107311101

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Since the 1980s, the world's governments have decreased state welfare and thus increased the number of unprotected 'informal' or 'precarious' workers. As a result, more and more workers do not receive secure wages or benefits from either employers or the state. This book offers a fresh and provocative look into the alternative social movements informal workers in India are launching. It also offers a unique analysis of the conditions under which these movements succeed or fail. Drawing from 300 interviews with informal workers, government officials and union leaders, Rina Agarwala argues that Indian informal workers are using their power as voters to demand welfare benefits from the state, rather than demanding traditional work benefits from employers. In addition, they are organizing at the neighborhood level, rather than the shop floor, and appealing to 'citizenship', rather than labor rights.


The Child and the State in India

The Child and the State in India

Author: Myron Weiner

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780691018980

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India has the largest number of non-schoolgoing working children in the world. Why has the government not removed them from the labor force and required that they attend school, as have the governments of all developed and many developing countries? To answer this question, this major comparative study first looks at why and when other states have intervened to protect children against parents and employers. By examining Europe of the nineteenth century, the United States, Japan, and a number of developing countries, Myron Weiner rejects the argument that children were removed from the labor force only when the incomes of the poor rose and employers needed a more skilled labor force. Turning to India, the author shows that its policies arise from fundamental beliefs, embedded in the culture, rather than from economic conditions. Identifying the specific values that elsewhere led educators, social activists, religious leaders, trade unionists, military officers, and government bureaucrats to make education compulsory and to end child labor, he explains why similar groups in India do not play the same role.


Wombs in Labor

Wombs in Labor

Author: Amrita Pande

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2014-09-23

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 0231538189

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Surrogacy is India's new form of outsourcing, as couples from all over the world hire Indian women to bear their children for a fraction of the cost of surrogacy elsewhere with little to no government oversight or regulation. In the first detailed ethnography of India's surrogacy industry, Amrita Pande visits clinics and hostels and speaks with surrogates and their families, clients, doctors, brokers, and hostel matrons in order to shed light on this burgeoning business and the experiences of the laborers within it. From recruitment to training to delivery, Pande's research focuses on how reproduction meets production in surrogacy and how this reflects characteristics of India's larger labor system. Pande's interviews prove surrogates are more than victims of disciplinary power, and she examines the strategies they deploy to retain control over their bodies and reproductive futures. While some women are coerced into the business by their families, others negotiate with clients and their clinics to gain access to technologies and networks otherwise closed to them. As surrogates, the women Pande meets get to know and make the most of advanced medical discoveries. They traverse borders and straddle relationships that test the boundaries of race, class, religion, and nationality. Those who focus on the inherent inequalities of India's surrogacy industry believe the practice should be either banned or strictly regulated. Pande instead advocates for a better understanding of this complex labor market, envisioning an international model of fair-trade surrogacy founded on openness and transparency in all business, medical, and emotional exchanges.


Labour Law Reforms in India

Labour Law Reforms in India

Author: Anamitra Roychowdhury

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2018-03-28

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 135105886X

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Labour market flexibility is one of the most closely debated public policy issues in India. This book provides a theoretical framework to understand the subject, and empirically examines to what extent India’s ‘jobless growth’ may be attributed to labour laws. There is a pervasive view that the country’s low manufacturing base and inability to generate jobs is primarily due to rigid labour laws. Therefore, job creation is sought to be boosted by reforming labour laws. However, the book argues that if labour laws are made flexible, then there are adverse consequences for workers: dismantled job security weakens workers’ bargaining power, incapacitates trade union movement, skews class distribution of output, dilutes workers’ rights, and renders them vulnerable. The book: identifies and critically examines the theory underlying the labour market flexibility (LMF) argument employs innovative empirical methods to test the LMF argument offers an overview of the organised labour market in India comprehensively discusses the proposed/instituted labour law reforms in the country contextualises the LMF argument in a macroeconomic setting discusses the political economy of labour law reforms in India. This book will interest scholars and researchers in economics, development studies, and public policy as well as economists, policymakers, and teachers of human resource management.


Labor, Democratization and Development in India and Pakistan

Labor, Democratization and Development in India and Pakistan

Author: Christopher Candland

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007-12-20

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 113408921X

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In this first comparative study of organized labor in India and Pakistan, the author analyses the impact and role of organized labor in democratization and development. The study provides a unique comparative history of Indian and Pakistani labor politics. It begins in the early twentieth century, when permanent unions first formed in the South Asian Subcontinent. Additionally, it offers an analysis of changes in conditions of work and terms of service in India and Pakistan and of organized labor’s response. The conclusions shed new light on the influence of organized labor in national politics, economic policy, economic welfare and at the workplace. It is demonstrated that the protection of workers has desirable outcomes not only for those workers covered but also for democratic practice and for economic development.


India's Migrant Workers and the Pandemic

India's Migrant Workers and the Pandemic

Author: Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-11-09

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1000507254

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A sudden announcement was made by the government on 24 March 2020 of a complete lockdown of the country, due to the spectre of Coronavirus. India’s Migrant Workers and the Pandemic was being written as the crisis was unfolding with no end in sight. Migrant workers from different parts of India had no choice but to trek back hundreds of kilometres carrying their scanty belongings and dragging their hungry and thirsty children in the scorching heat of the plains of India to reach home. How did caste, race, gender, and other fault lines operate in this governmental strategy to cope with a virus epidemic? The eight papers in this collection, highlight the ethical and political implications of the epidemic—particularly for India’s migrant workers. What were the forces of power at play in this war against the epidemic? What measures could have been taken and need to be taken now? Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.


Workers, Unions, and Global Capitalism

Workers, Unions, and Global Capitalism

Author: Rohini Hensman

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2011-01-27

Total Pages: 585

ISBN-13: 0231519567

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While it's easy to blame globalization for shrinking job opportunities, dangerous declines in labor standards, and a host of related discontents, the "flattening" of the world has also created unprecedented opportunities for worker organization. By expanding employment in developing countries, especially for women, globalization has formed a basis for stronger workers' rights, even in remote sites of production. Using India's labor movement as a model, Rohini Hensman charts the successes and failures, strengths and weaknesses, of the struggle for workers' rights and organization in a rich and varied nation. As Indian products gain wider acceptance in global markets, the disparities in employment conditions and union rights between such regions as the European Union and India's vast informal sector are exposed, raising the issue of globalization's implications for labor. Hensman's study examines the unique pattern of "employees' unionism," which emerged in Bombay in the 1950s, before considering union responses to recent developments, especially the drive to form a national federation of independent unions. A key issue is how far unions can resist protectionist impulses and press for stronger global standards, along with the mechanisms to enforce them. After thoroughly unpacking this example, Hensman zooms out to trace the parameters of a global labor agenda, calling for a revival of trade unionism, the elimination of informal labor, and reductions in military spending to favor funding for comprehensive welfare and social security systems.


The Darjeeling Distinction

The Darjeeling Distinction

Author: Sarah Besky

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0520277392

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Introduction : reinventing the plantation for the 21st century -- Darjeeling -- Plantation -- Property -- Fairness -- Sovereignty -- Conclusion : is something better than nothing?


Footloose Labour

Footloose Labour

Author: Jan Breman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1996-09-13

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 9780521568241

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In a penetrating anthropological study of the working poor in India, Jan Breman examines the lives of those who, pushed out of the agrarian labour market, depend on casual work. Beginning his local-level research in two villages in south Gujarat, the author discusses the mobilisation of casual labour, which is hired and fired according to the need of the moment, and transferred for the duration of the job to destinations far away from the home area. His case-study reveals that the circulation of labour is indicative of an employment pattern which dominates both the rural and urban economy of large parts of South Asia. Elaborating on the social profile of the work migrants, the author argues that their identity is shaped by both class and caste relations and, despite action by state agencies, nothing of significance has been achieved to improve their quality of life.