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Motivation: The participation rate of women in India's labour force is not only one of the lowest in the world, it has also been declining. To increase women's employment, some observers argue for reducing occupational gender segregation so that more women enter non‐traditional jobs. Purpose: I ask how aspirations for non‐traditional jobs are formed among young women in Delhi. The aim was to enable policy‐makers to foster occupational aspirations for non‐traditional jobs so women could enter jobs considered to be men's work, reducing gender segregation and increasing women's participation in the labour market. Methods and approach: I interviewed 72 young women from low‐income households in Delhi, following a semi‐structured guide. These young women were training either in jobs seen as the preserve of men—taxi drivers, electricians, and electronics mechanics—or in traditionally female work in beauty salons. Findings: Contrary to conventional wisdom, young women's entry into non‐traditional training in Delhi was not a result of their occupational aspirations. Rather, entry into training saw them aspire to the jobs for which they trained. Policy implications: To increase women's entry into jobs dominated by men, policy‐makers do not need to influence young women's occupational aspirations. Instead, they should focus on factors that directly affect job entry—for example, having training centres close to where these young women live—and provide opportunities for young women to train. Traditional concepts of occupational aspirations, generally derived from the global North, do not apply in the same way to young women in India. My study raises questions about these conceptions of aspirations and prompts future studies to assess whether they apply in other parts of the global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: Las respuestas del mercado de trabajo en anteriores recesiones económicas han sido contradictorias y paradójicas, con reacciones procíclicas y anticíclicas según los países. A falta de redes de protección social, como el seguro de desempleo, las tasas de ocupación anticíclicas pueden evidenciar dificultades económicas, más que oportunidades de ocupación productiva. Tras cotejar los datos de ocupación‐desocupación de los hogares de la India con las recomendaciones de la 19.a Conferencia Internacional de Estadísticos del Trabajo sobre la subutilización de la fuerza de trabajo, en este artículo se critican las deficiencias y se aboga por revisar los métodos de recopilación de datos para fundamentar mejor las políticas del mercado laboral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multicriteria mathematical modeling is an analytical framework for formally describing real‐life problems involving multiple and conflicting objectives. In the past decade, multicriteria decision‐making techniques have been applied in almost every area of the decision‐making including energy‐economic planning and sustainable development. Various mathematical and analytical models have been presented for the sustainable development planning and their assessment. In this paper, we discuss an approach related to multicriteria decision‐making and apply it for the assessment of the sustainable development goals of India by the year 2030. In the INDC report submitted to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2015, http://www..unfccc.int/submissions/INDC/Published%20Documents/India/1/INDIA%20INDC%20TO%20UNFCCC.pdf), India has identified many goals related to the sustainable development like energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, GVA growth, and an increase in the employment by the year 2030. This paper overcomes the energy resource allocation problem in related literature due to the lack of sectorial data for the same year by calculating the estimates for each sector for the year 2030. We presented a multicriteria decision‐making model which allocates public labor force in the key economic sectors of India. The presented model is validated with the data of the key economic sectors and their contribution in the identified goals. The paper provides a decision support for the better management of future sustainable policies by assessing the efficiencies of the current policies toward future sustainable goals. We evaluated the identified goals using the multicriteria decision‐making approaches so that the strategic planning can be implemented by the policy makers and to present a quantitative justification of planning strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale, aims and objectives: A key consideration in designing scalable solutions for improving global mental health involves balancing the need for interventions to be uncomplicated for mental health workers (MHWs) and the need for the intervention to be widely applicable to many clients. Often these needs are in competition, since interventions are routinely simplified by removing procedures or reducing their dynamic responsivity, which in turn lowers their overall utility in serving large, clinically diverse populations. The principal aim of this pilot study involved evaluating the feasibility and acceptability of a brief strategy designed to delegate problem classification and practice selection to MHWs operating within a flexible, modular, cognitive behavioural protocol. A secondary aim involved gathering data on which to base a hypothesis regarding the potential effectiveness of this strategy. Method: Within an open trial, an educationally diverse sample of local MHWs in India (N = 18) reviewed fictional case vignettes, classified mental health problems, and then selected practices before and after a two‐hour training that included a one‐page decision‐making resource. Feasibility was measured by assessing the integrity of the study protocol and training, the measurement and administration of questionnaires as well as study recruitment and completion. Acceptability of the intervention was measured by MHW‐perceived performance, ease of use, value, importance, and intention for continued use. Decision‐making accuracy was assessed by comparing MHWs' clinical decisions with criteria established through consensus among psychologists with expertise in modular protocols. Results: Results suggested high feasibility and acceptability on all metrics. Secondary analysis revealed that MHW's decision‐making accuracy and confidence also significantly improved, providing a basis for the hypothesis that this brief approach is useful for building MHW capacity in low‐resource settings. Conclusion: Overall these findings provide initial support for these methods and potential training outcomes to test within a larger, randomized controlled trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major health and social issue that affects around 30 percent of women globally. This study investigates the relationships through which witnessing IPV in adolescence may impact the labor force participation and employment prospects of women in early adulthood, using a unique dataset from Bihar (India), which surveyed youth (primarily girls) in adolescence and again nine years later. The study examined the relationship between exposure to IPV and labor market outcomes among young women, including intermediate factors likely to influence their employment prospects, such as educational attainment, self‐efficacy, mental health, and soft skills. Witnessing IPV as an adolescent had a negative effect on educational attainment, mental health, and social and behavioral aspects of young women almost nine years later. IPV was not associated with the likelihood of paid employment or participation in skilled work among women, although it was associated with higher levels of labor force participation. These findings suggest that witnessing IPV should be considered one of multiple forms of violence that may expose young women to longer term vulnerability related to poorer educational and employment prospects, mental health, and social networks, with implications for economic and social development far beyond the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the impact of female workforce participation on violent and non‐violent crimes in India. Increase in female workforce should lead to greater investment in education and labour, more specifically by men. Greater representation of females also leads to increase in reporting of crime. These factors raise apprehension and conviction costs and should lead to fall in criminal engagements. Estimates suggest that a percent rise in female workforce leads to 1.5% rise in non‐violent crimes contemporaneously. With a decade lag, rise in female workforce causes reduction in violent crime by 1.1% and non‐violent crime by 2.24%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery showed that countries with surgeon, anesthetist, and obstetrician (SAO) densities of 20–40 SAO/100,000 population were associated with improved health outcomes and recommended a global surgical workforce scale-up by 2030. Whether countries would be able to achieve such scale-up efforts in that time-frame is unknown. Methods: A differential equation model was used to estimate the growth rate and number of SAO necessary for each country to reach the aforementioned SAO densities. Workforce data from Mexico and India were used to estimate achievable rates of SAO scale-up for middle- and low-income countries, respectively. Secular surgical growth rates were estimated to demonstrate what might occur without dedicated scale-up efforts. Results: To reach at least 20 SAO/100,000 population in all countries by 2030, over 808 thousand SAO need to be trained by 2030. To reach at least 40 SAO/100,000 population, over 2.1 million SAO need to be trained. If countries adopt a scale-up rate similar to Mexico's previously achieved rate of scale-up, 66% of countries would have 20 SAO/100,000 population by 2030. If countries adopt a scale-up rate similar to India's previously achieved rate of scale-up, 56% would have 20 SAO/100,000 population by 2030. Conclusion: With dedicated efforts in surgical workforce scale-up, significant gains in SAO density can be made worldwide. However, without intervention, many countries are unlikely to improve their current workforce densities. Investments in workforce scale-up are likely to yield workforce gains that mirror current resource states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La globalización y las reformas económicas afectan por lo común al sector formal, pues el informal se halla al margen de las normas. Sin embargo, debido a los numerosos nexos que hay entre ambos, también en el sector informal se dejan sentir sus efectos de diversas maneras. El modelo teórico que se utiliza tradicionalmente para entender el impacto de estas fuerzas se basa en la fragmentación del mercado de trabajo y en las migraciones: los trabajadores que son despedidos en el sector formal engrosan la oferta de mano de obra informal, lo cual causa un descenso de los salarios y un aumento de la pobreza. El autor indaga si estos fenómenos se han dado en la India tras las reformas económicas del decenio de 1990, usando para ello un modelo basado en las variaciones de la oferta y de la demanda causadas por la «externización», las transferencias de trabajadores cualificados y las nuevas empresas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts a sub-state level analysis of health system efficiency, focusing on West Bengal, a low income Indian state. Using a stochastic frontier model, it provides an idealized yardstick for evaluation. Our results suggest that overall efficiency of the public health delivery system remains low due to considerable disparities across districts. This is owing to differentials in availability and utilization of inputs such as the per capita availability of hospitals, beds, and manpower, and adversely affects life expectancy. Overcoming these factoral disparities may help the deficient districts to improve life expectancy. It may require a considerable increase in medical and public health expenditure in rural areas in the state and especially calls for resource mobilization to improve infrastructure facilities and maintain essential supplies at primary health centers. This could be attempted partly through funds from the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and by improving rural sanitation in poorer districts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I document practices of globalization in a newly emerging transnational labour force– call centre workers in New Delhi, India, who provide voice-to-voice service to clients dialling toll-free numbers in North America. Recent theorists have focused on how capitalism is continually under construction, and how heterogeneous groups of workers play active roles in relation to transnational corporate processes. Accordingly, I trace three practices that constitute transnational call centre work–scripting, synchronicity and locational masking– and examine how Indian workers negotiate these practices. I argue that the transnationalization of voice-to-voice service work provides the opportunity for Indian workers to construct‘Americans’ and situate their own jobs within global labour markets. Drawing on interviews with call centre workers, managers and trainers in India, I explore the ways in which analyses of theof globalization provides an insight on workers' attempts to enhance their quality of life vis-à-vis transnational capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization of human capital through international migration is no longer about global physical presence only; it is also about global applicability of skills across various fields of specialization. This marks the main characteristics of skilled migration from India to developed countries in the twenty-first century. The focus is shifting away from professionals in specific occupations, like doctors, engineers, scientists, architects, bankers, to information technology (IT) professionals embodying, in a way, more generic skills. In other words, it is the generic applicability of information and communications technology (ICT) which has led to large-scale migration of Indians skilled in IT. Moreover, the exodus comprises not only the fully trained and educated workers going abroad for employment, but also students - the semi-finished human capital - pursuing higher education in onshore as well as offshore universities of the developed countries. The new emigration is directed towards traditional host countries in the West such as the UK, Canada, and the US, but also towards newly emerging destinations in continental Europe (Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Denmark), Australasia (Australia, New Zealand), East Asia (Japan, Republic of Korea), and South-East Asia (Singapore, Malaysia). By using mainly current information and informal data as reported in the media, this article perceives emerging trends and changes in the context of the global labour market for skills, and suggests a possible framework towards evolving strategies of remedial development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details a study which examined the extent of work done and the question of job choice in the labor supply of Maharashtra, India. Use of the National Sample Surveys data; Features of the workforce of Maharashtra; Role of the labor supply in the agrarian economy; Calculations of the work participation model, work model and the job choice model; Work participation and the extent of work done; Factors that determine the labor supply.

Migrant nurses form an increasing proportion of the nursing workforce, with the United Kingdom (UK) being the third most popular destination for overseas nurses in the world. The migrant nurse workforce is highly susceptible to policy changes at the macro or professional level of the donor and recipient countries. Freedom of information requests were issued to 19 National Health Service [NHS] Trusts in England to determine their involvement in overseas nurse recruitment activity from 1998 onwards. These indicate a notable shift away from active European Union (EU) recruitment and towards overseas countries particularly the Philippines and India. Reasons given were as follows: diminishing returns from EU sources, high attrition among EU nurses and the introduction of English language tests for EU nurses in July 2016. This led to Trusts revisiting their recruitment strategies by increasing more direct/less resource‐intensive methods and expanding their focus outside of the EU. Trusts frequently utilised private recruitment companies for their recruitment drives, including consulting and influencing the Trusts' workforce strategies. Policy adjustments have numerous influences on the composition of the overseas nursing workforce. While the NHS continues its efforts in expanding its international nursing workforce, this should not be at the expense of ethical and sustainable recruitment practices, which may be compromised indirectly as a result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]