The first day of the 64th Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE) Conference at the University of Hyderabad focused on the dark underbelly of India’s growth story. Economists used labour and social indices to show how the growth of India has been lopsided aiding the rich get richer.
In her presidential address, Ritu Dewan, formerly with University of Mumbai, brought a gender perspective to her analysis. In her presentation on “Towards Demystifying Self-Employment in India: Delineation, Dimensionality, Differentia”, she spoke about the decline of women in regular employment. She said: “Earlier women who were self employed would say with pride ‘hum apne marzi ke maalik hai.’ Now, when we ask them, they say ‘aur koi chara nai hai’. Between the pride of ‘we are free’ to ‘we don’t have an option’ a lot has been lost.”
“The state has transferred its responsibility of providing jobs. Citizens undertake their own economic empowerment through ‘assisted’ self employment deepening indebtedness. Poorer households are poor not because women are not working but because there are no decent jobs available at fair wages for any household members,” she added.
In her keynote paper presentation, Uma Rani of the International Labour Organisation, delved into the role of gig and platform economy in employment generation. “There are 325 platforms in India and a majority of them are in logistics and delivery followed by beauty, domestic and personal services. A majority of workers are in the age group of 25 to 35 and they pay a commission fee ranging between 20% and 35%,” she pointed out in her paper ‘Platform work in developing countries: Is it narrowing or widening inequalities?’
She called for harnessing technology for development, protect workers and shape employment policies to ensure that the digital transformation is associated with productive and structural transformation.
K. P. Kannan of the Centre for Development Studies showed the gap between rhetoric and reality of India’s growth. He showed how inequality has impacted per capita income and education system with the average years of education being one of the lowest at 6.5 years for girls. “Only 19% of workers are covered under one of the three social security benefits such as Provident Fund, Gratuity and ESIC. Using another benchmark of childcare and what he called humanely developed, 33% of children in the age group of 6 to 59 months are non-anaemic. Two third of babies in India are anaemic,” he said painting a grim picture of inequality.
