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Background: The literature has expounded on the impacts of international service-learning (ISL) in teacher education as positively affecting everything from improving academic achievement to developing a greater moral and ethical sense. Other studies have examined the role of cultural competence and dimensions of power between those providing and receiving service. Purpose: This paper examines a decade-long ISL immersion program to understand the outcomes on students in three key areas that have received attention in the literature: motivation, employment, and academics. Methodology: A longitudinal case study comprising a cross-section of students who were asked to reflect on their immersion experiences, which took place from 2011 to 2020. Reflective journals completed during and directly after each immersion supplemented the survey data. Findings: While much of the data supports previous studies regarding the impacts of ISL, there are some anomalous findings, especially in the longer-term effects of ISL within teacher education. While participants' perceptions of the impacts were significant, evidence of that impact was lacking. Implications: Although short-term impacts of the immersion were more significantly noted, students perceived the impact for more extended periods than previously thought. However, the evidence to suggest that these perceptions are realizable is lacking.

The paper offers a synthesis of findings from an international initiative coordinated by the Asia Productivity Organisation (APO) to measure higher education productivity across nine Asian countries. The paper discusses benefits, barriers, and potential for estimating university productivity across international contexts. Stakeholders from nine participating countries collected and analysed institutional data and reported measurement results. The APO initiative represents the first multi-country test of an adapted productivity measurement model first advanced by the United States National Research Council (NRC). The research provides evidence for proof of concept of the adapted NRC model for use across international contexts. Additional findings demonstrate the range of productivity definitions and interpretations for higher education. The paper concludes by showing priority areas for both targeted and broad developments in research and practice of measuring productivity in higher education.

Thomas Munro, a Scottish highlander, came to the Madras Presidency in South India as a soldier in the army of the East India Company in 1780. He rose to the position of its governor 40 years later in 1820 and died in India in 1827. His rise was not through military campaigns but peaceful administrative policies. During his stay in India, he defended Indian interests and took on powerful governors-general and other higher officials. He resisted their elitist policies, talked of lack of political freedom in India and wanted to give representation to Indians in administration. He conducted the first educational survey and established 101 schools. In the history of modern India, particularly in the history of education, there is a tendency to view British colonialism as a monolithic category. This paper looks at this extraordinary journey of a Scottish soldier, his impoverished status, family constraints, struggle with British elitism, and above all, his contributions to education in South India. No theory of imperialism and colonialism is available to analyse the Scottish interventions in the field of education. Such existing theories rely on the European and non-European dichotomies. They cannot be used to explain why the Scots chose to support Indians instead of their own fellow British officers in the colonial administration.

This paper presents constructions of 'work' through a comparative charting of the manner in which young people across rural India, urban India, and the urban UK account for their educational and work trajectories. The comparison grounds an interrogation of the individualisation thesis and the reflexive biography, an influential analytical framework for examining youth biographies in the Global North, bringing it into conversation with theoretical traditions that study youth identities/biographies in a global framework such as development studies and human geography. Employing a conceptual framework that places youth subjectivities as it forms and is formed by place (material and structural features) and cultural norms concerning ideal selfhood, I analyse the accounts for the reflexive management of biographies, the cultural/structural resources that participants draw upon in constructing these, and the moral frameworks underlying aspirations for the 'good life' in these accounts. Responding to calls for dialogues between the Global North and Global South in youth studies, the aim is to de-valorise reflexivity and choice in biographical management by highlighting some psychological penalties associated with these modes of self-construction in late modernity and thereby to 'talk back' to some of the assumptions underlying youth studies in/from the Global North.

MGNREGA was introduced in India in 2005 with the aim to improve the livelihood of rural Indian households. In 2012-13, around 156 million rural Indian households had an outstanding personal debt; 85% of the amount of credit being disbursed was given to those households in the bottom income decile for 'non-business' related purposes. This paper uses nationally representative household data from the NSS EUS collected in 2004-05 and 2009-10 to look at the impact MGNREGA has had on the rural households' ability to repay outstanding debt. Results suggests that MGNREGA reduced the size of the outstanding debts for vulnerable households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to clarify an impact of Maternity Benefits Act, 1961 (Amendment 2017) on job employment of working mothers. It proposes the certain facts that has positive impact on employment of women from the point of view of Government of India, but at the same time it highlights some negative implications that are faced by the employers and working mothers. The objective of this act is to provide a woman with a financial assistance and make her free from engaging in any work so as to protect health of "New Mother" and "New Born child". Also, the act ensures women to take care of her child without having worry about loss of her job and loss of her employment. Design/methodology/approach: This paper carries efforts of researcher done on the topic of "Impact of Maternity Benefits Act, 1961 (Amendment 2017)" and measures its impact on employers and job employment of working mothers in India through literature review from various sources like SCOPUS, EMERALD, EBSCO, PROQUEST, SAGE, etc. The paper opted for an exploratory study using the questionnaire approach of grounded theory, including 50 in-depth interviews of working mothers. Findings: Outcome of this describes both positive and negative implications of this amendment on businesses and job employment of working mothers. It throws the limelight on implementation of this act in real life and identification of problems and stress faced by women employee either to get the job or to retain the job during pregnancy period which is very hazardous to the health of women and her inborn child also. Research limitations/implications: Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further. Practical implications: The paper includes implications of the Maternity Benefits Act, 1961 (Amendment 2017) on employers whether to hire women employee or not and on women though they are having capability to do work but because of ignorance of government on ensuring proper implementation of act, women are not getting opportunity to work after baby birth. Originality/value: This paper fulfils an identified need to study and find some measures for effective implantation of Maternity Benefits Act, 1961 (Amendment 2017) so as to protect and regulate employment of women workers before and after child birth so as to increase female labour force participation rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 500 million people in the world are disabled as a consequence of mental, physical or sensory impairment. Too often their lives are handicapped by physical and social barriers in society which hamper their full participation. Because of this, millions of children and adults in all parts of the world often face a life that is segregated and debased. In view of the importance of an accessible and barrier free environment for PwDs, the present paper attempts to look at efforts made in India towards the same especially Accessible India Campaign (AIC) and Barrier Free Environment (BFE). The paper found that the progress towards creating enabling environment for disabled in the country is quite slow and many of the objective/targets are still to be achieved. The study also found a wide variation among states in achievement of targets set out for providing accessibility environment to the disabled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies in the United Kingdom have shown distinctions in intergenerational co-residency between UK-born and foreign-born individuals, however, little research has examined how factors such as immigrant incorporation, economic adaptation, and kin availability shape household formation patterns among immigrants. This paper uses data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009–2010) to explore differences in the likelihood of UK-born and foreign-born working-aged adults to co-reside with at least one parent, highlighting distinctions by life stage (age) at migration and gender. Results show that, regardless of life stage at migration, foreign-born women and men are less likely to co-reside with parents than UK-born, however, intergenerational co-residency is high among some second-generation immigrant groups, particularly UK-born Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi individuals. These findings challenge cultural assumptions about household formation patterns and point to the need for additional research on how economic inequality, kin availability, and gender norms shape immigrant household composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Importance of the manufacturing sector in bringing about structural transformation in the economy is well appreciated in literature. In India, with more than 70% of manufacturing employment originating in the unorganised segment, it becomes imperative to explore the dynamics of employment and growth of firms in the unorganised manufacturing sector. Additionally, interest in the sector arises since it is one of the prime avenues of employment generation. In particular, this paper examines the economic viability of unorganised manufacturing firms and underemployment therein. Results on underemployment help us to conclude on the prospect of full-time employment opportunities in the sector, whereas an assessment of economic viability brings out the major obstacles to growth plaguing unorganised manufacturing firms. This article identifies the prime areas requiring policy intervention and emphasises the need of implementing existing policies on ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capitalist progress implies the destruction of the old and uncompetitive sectors and the creation of new ones in their wake. However, in the Global South the loss of jobs in the older sectors is not necessarily offset by the new forms of employment. The objective of this paper is to critically examine how the vast employment in the Indian handloom sector could be sustained, given the competitive pressures from alternative technologies and products. Rather than allow the sector to be a victim of capitalist progress, this paper on moral economy grounds offers an alternative approach, which is to boost the demand for handloom products through commercial branding but one that is rooted in cultural valorization of artisanal craft. This strategy, complementary to state provisioning of subsidized inputs, comes at the expense of authenticity but is expected to enhance consumption and sustain livelihoods in the handloom sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the link between trade liberalization and the job-matching process in India by estimating an aggregate matching function by incorporating trade openness as a proxy for trade liberalization. Monthly data are drawn from the National Employment Service's Employment Exchange, India's only public employment service. The results show that trade liberalization leads to a decline in the number of new hires. This implies the exacerbation of matching efficiency, described by an outward shift of the Beveridge curve. This finding is in accordance with a widely held public view that trade liberalization increases unemployment. Therefore, the Indian government should continue carrying out structural reforms for the Indian economy to deal with the inefficiencies in the labor market due to external liberalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue covers an intersectional approach to extreme labour exploitation. We provide concrete empirical studies and new theoretical frameworks. This overview paper analyses how modern slavery theories might influence policy options. The theories examined in this Special Issue include supply-chain theories, feminist approaches to work, diffusion of innovation theory, intersectional gender-and-development theory, and the social construction of narratives around bonded and forced labour. Evidence is given from the garment industry, farming, and other sectors based on field research and questionnaire surveys dated 2015–2020. Women in paid jobs are widely exposed to extreme exploitation, coerced overtime, having their papers held by the employer, and subject to threats/violence. In care work, the gender worktime difference is large, and evidence is given from India of girl children's work hours being much longer, on average, than boys' hours. Extreme exploitation rests upon gaping social and economic inequalities which deserve policy attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the prevalence of child labour and long working hours in India using 2019 data, with estimates for boys and girls that deal with age-related child development concerns related to long hours of work. We use international suggestions to define harmful child labour from ILO and UNICEF and a nationally defined time-threshold model in analysing the child-labour phenomenon. Measuring time by the three measurement systems and splitting children by age, gender, and cultural components make harmful forms of labour become clearer. The results show that girls doing agricultural labour and boys working as non-agricultural labourers had the longest average working hours in India. Important social-group differentials emerge. This study implies that policy-makers can be, and need to be, aware of explicit measures of hours worked by children aged six to 17. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) and multiple rounds of the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the paper summarises evidence on changes in the employment–unemployment scenario since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and related curbs on economic activity since April 2020. The paper presents evidence on how the pandemic affected pre-existing gender, caste gaps and patterns of employment by sector of production (agricultural, manufacturing, and services). The paper situates these shifts in a longer arc, comparing them to the pre-COVID employment scenario, to understand the long-term impact of the pandemic on the Indian labour market. The data show that the pandemic reinforced and deepened many of the pre-existing schisms. As economic activity is recovering, employment is increasing, but is yet to return to the pre-pandemic levels. The employment challenge is bigger than just achieving the pre-pandemic levels: there is an urgent need to boost job creation and rectify pre-pandemic deep-rooted inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the impact of household participation in a large‐scale public works programme in India on educational decisions including children schooling and expenditure incurred on private coaching and other educational components. Exogenous variation in proximity of households to a river is used to control for the potential endogeneity. The findings indicate positive impact of the programme on expenditure on private coaching while having no impact on other educational expenditures indicating higher income elasticity of private coaching. The paper thus emphasizes on various direct and indirect benefits of the programme which necessitate its effective implementation at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines labour market inequality in Indonesia and India, using a common conceptual approach that draws on a job ladder framework. In the framework, I differentiate between self-employment and wage-informal employment and between formal, upper-tier informal and lower-tier informal employment. I find that Indonesia and India both have job ladders that are narrow at the top and broad at the bottom, with the share of workers in lower-tier informal jobs significantly exceeding the share of workers in upper informal and formal employment. However, more people are in formal wage-employment in Indonesia than in India. Unlike in Indonesia, where the share of wage-employment in total employment increased from 2001 to 2020, the corresponding share in India was relatively constant from 1988 to 2022. Sharp disparities are evident in the earnings of workers in different tiers of the labour market in Indonesia and India, and evidence of convergence in earnings is limited between lower-tier informal workers and formal workers, at least in Indonesia. I also find that females and less-educated workers occupy the lower tiers of the labour markets in the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today youth employment is the biggest concern of the nation. According to the Centre for the Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) the unemployment rate in India has been increased by 6.9% in February'2021, as compared to January'2021 i.e., 6.53%. Now again due to the second wave of Covid, the unemployment rate is reaching at its worst and the local lockdown scenario in many states have witnessed a huge impact over the jobs, almost 70 lakhs jobs have been suffered. This also indicates that situation may get even more worse if the lockdown will continue to happen and things don't get under control soon. As per the article published in "The India Express" May 11' 2021, the employability of engineering graduates is registered 47.38% only, which is highest among all other domains, on the one hand where country is facing a continuous increasing challenge of employment, at the same time there is a new wave of online courses have arrived apart from the regular degree/diploma programs. This paper tries to analyse the market potential for these online courses and tries to investigate whether the candidate gets the real benefit after completing these online courses which claims to be specialised in certain area or domain in terms of providing employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic dualism is often a major impediment in social and economic reforms where rich and powerful dictate policies and subvert the end intended result of efforts made by the government. MGNREGA could not be successful to its potential due to opportunities being underutilized by the targeted rural workers. Relatively well-off derailed the employment generation scheme as they commanded who gets what and how much. This paper aims to analyze how the Farm Reform Bill is exposed to similar risk as rich states are in a position to dictate the Farm Bill at the expense of poor states. The paper makes global comparison of India's agriculture performance with other developing countries highlighting a dire need of reform to perform. This paper also highlights the criticality of Farm Bill and arrive at the conclusion that India needs to calm down her opposition to rural reform through dialogues with various stakeholders keeping in mind the already lagging performance of agricultural sector which urgently need a lifeline in the form of Land Reform Bill. The issue of resistance from farmers has to be met with logic and compassion beside political statecraft to sail through agrarian protests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering is traditionally considered a male domain with lower female participation despite various affirmative actions taken in recent decades. There is evidence of greater gender equality as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and precautionary lockdown measures. With this in mind, this paper investigates whether women engineers in India were more adversely affected than their male counterparts by the COVID-19 pandemic. Such an impact may be explained by 'intersectional stigma', expanded upon in the literature on discrimination. The impact of such stigma varies in different countries based on socio-cultural factors. Through the use of ethnographic and statistical research methods on secondary and primary data from a sample of 384 engineers, this paper shows that the impact of COVID-19 is not significantly different between genders in engineering education and employment. This may be due to the high demand for digital engineering skills, and strong family support in Indian society. Engineering branch may play a relatively more important role than gender in terms of impact. This finding has repercussions for continuing engineering education (CEE) programs and regulatory bodies in India in terms of enhancing course content and the results may be used in developing affirmative programs in other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims at assessing the impact of innovation on productivity as sustainable development can be attained primarily through non-resource-driven growth. Secondly, it also proposes to reflect on the rising capital intensity in the Indian industries as technology advancement, particularly in the light of the fourth industrial revolution, is expected to reduce the labour absorbing capacity of the industrial sector. Design/methodology/approach: Based on panel data for different Indian firms in various groups of industries, this paper estimates TFPG and TE (following Cornwell et al. methodology) and assesses the impact of R&D expenditure on the performance indices. Secondly, it measures the capital intensity across various groups of industries to reflect on the "employment problem". Findings: Innovation does not seem to enhance the performance index in a very significant manner across industry groups considered in the study. The lack of extensive evidence on impact of innovation on total factor productivity growth suggests that innovation does not necessarily result in technological progress while the need of the hour is to experience non-resource-driven growth on the one hand and employment growth on the other. The positive impact of innovation on efficiency as seen in the paper can be interpreted as the expenditure incurred to realize the potentiality of the technology which is possibly imported. However, capital accumulation is resulting in rapid productivity growth at the cost of employment. Research limitations/implications: Capturing technological progress in terms of TFPG can be subjected to criticism. Practical implications: Policy implications for employment generation and inclusive growth are derived. Social implications: The study cautions us about the adverse implications in terms of employment growth. Originality/value: Assessing the impact of innovation on performance such as TFPG and TE is rather rare in the literature, and this paper tries to reflect on this aspect using the Indian firm-level data. Secondly, the trade-offs between productivity growth and employment growth are brought out distinctly in order to highlight the declining labour absorbing capacity of the industrial sector. This enables us to reflect on the adverse consequences of the fourth industrial revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the cultural rights of labour in maritime employment a conceptual understanding. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is qualitative in nature which deals the maritime employment policies, rules and regulations related to cultural rights in India. Findings: This conceptual research paper gives an introductory framework of the cultural rights of labour in maritime employment in India. Research limitations/implications: This research paper would be helpful to the maritime entities and researchers to looking the issue of cultural rights aspects of labour in maritime employment. Originality/value: This paper is one of the cultural rights approaches with respect to labour in maritime employment in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty remains a major challenge for the countries of the global south. Decent employment opportunity, a crucial determinant of poverty reduction, is increasingly becoming elusive for those countries regardless of a decent rate of economic growth. There is a growing separation of economic growth and employment growth under the aegis of neo-liberal economic policies. Economic growth, instead of becoming inclusive, turns out to be “jobless” or “job loss.” Failing to reverse this trend, “Active Labour Market Policies” (ALMPs) in the form of “Public Works Programmes” (PWPs) have emerged as a major strategy to reduce unemployment and poverty. Secondly, rural–urban migration is very much relied upon for the same. Raising agricultural productivity, a crucial question of “agrarian transition,” well evident and verified across the globe, is, however, becoming oblivion in the fight against poverty. In this context, based on a primary survey of 300 households in the poorest regions of India, this paper endeavors to investigate the relative strength of MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), rural–urban migration, and land productivity on poverty. The study suggests that an agrarian-centric intervention is more effective in dealing with poverty as compared to MGNREGA (ALMPs) and migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most countries implement safety net programs for poor households. A widespread concern is that such programs crowd out private-sector jobs, but they could also affect workers' job choice. This paper analyzes the first-year employment impacts of the world's largest public-works program, India's National Rural Employment Generation Scheme (NREGS), using a novel regression-discontinuity design. It focuses on districts treated in phase 2 of the NREGS rollout, which excludes poorer districts that were already treated. The results show that there is little evidence of a crowding out of private-sector jobs. Instead, male workers move from work for pay to family employment, which is driven by smallholder farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demand for vehicles in India is on a continuous rise, primarily attributed to increasing income levels. The Indian government has initiated steps to decarbonize the transport sector, offering incentives for alternate vehicles' adoption. This study introduces a qualitative framework, employing a causal structure to comprehend the dynamics of vehicle demand. The framework takes into account critical feedback loops that influence the demand for alternate vehicles and, consequently, the overall vehicle demand. The causal loop diagram for vehicle demand encompasses five key domains: socio‐economic development, infrastructure development, environmental awareness, fuel supply market and alternate vehicle technology. Notably, economic activity, urban sprawl, vehicle demand, alternate vehicle technology improvement, and the sustainability and fuel constraints linked with internal combustion engine vehicles emerge as the critical aspects governing the dynamics of the model. The leverage and intervention points influencing the vehicle demand are also identified. Further, based on the evolving interaction of the various reinforcing and balancing loops, this work identifies three distinct phases of the evolution of vehicle demand dynamics in India, namely, the emerging phase (2020–2040), the growth phase (2040–2060) and the stagnation phase (2060–2080). The paper discusses the crucial features of these phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rising numbers of young unmarried men in India reflect a marriage squeeze that goes beyond the shortage of brides created by sex-selective abortion. We describe a decline in men's marriageability caused by their falling economic prospects at the same time as families of brides are increasingly seeking grooms with stable employment. We group young men into those without jobs or much education, those with education but no work, and the privileged few with education as well as employment. This classification resolves some of the seeming contradictions in the qualitative literature on marriage in India. Some of this literature talks about the rising prevalence of bride price and some about the persistence of dowry, while some papers reflect in general on the costs of being young, male, and aimless. Our commentary includes a review of the growing literature on the physiological and (perhaps) consequently behavioural and health outcomes of men's anomie.

This paper studies gross labour market flows and determinants of labour market transitions for urban Indian workers using a panel dataset constructed from Indian Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data for the period 2017–18 to 2019–20. Longitudinal studies based on the PLFS have been hampered by data problems that prevent a straightforward merging of the 2017–18 and 2018–19 data releases. In this paper, we propose and validate a matching procedure based on individual and household characteristics that can successfully link almost all records across these 2 years. We use the constructed dataset to document a number of stylised facts about gross worker flows and to estimate the effects of different individual characteristics and work histories on probabilities of job gain and loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pandemic and online learning have added to barriers to education. Lack of digital access, difficulty in communication with teachers and lack of peer support create major hurdles in learning for a large proportion of the student population. New entry barriers to better jobs, level and quality of higher education, will add to existing social barriers of gender, caste and nepotism. This will perpetuate a vicious cycle of low education and low incomes. In this paper, we investigate whether there is a threshold of level of education for better jobs in India? We find that higher secondary education is a threshold required for entry into good jobs. We observe increasing returns to private investments in higher levels of education and higher returns to education in the formal sector jobs compared to the informal sector. Will deficits in education during the pandemic reduce investments in education? We study these issues mainly using secondary data from the National Sample Office (NSO). The purpose of this short paper is to build research hypotheses regarding the relation between investment in education and employment, which we highlight in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experience of countries that succeeded in reducing poverty significantly indicates the importance of high rates of economic growth in achieving this. Every section of the Indian economy is now linked with the world outside, either through its direct involvement in international trade or through its indirect linkages with the export or import transactions of other sectors of the economy. The new policy regime is as much important, and relevant, to farmers, industrialists, traders and sundry service providers as to scientists, writers and singers. The present study is to attempts into some of the crucial dimensions of the changing employment scenario in rural India at the national as well as the state level. The present paper mainly focus on the agricultural sector is also heavily dependent on migrant, temporary and seasonal workers; the precarious conditions in which these workers labour often rob them and their families of food security. Low pay, however, is not the only problem facing agricultural workers. Agriculture is one of the most dangerous industries to work in, alongside construction and mining. Indeed, it is the sector with the most fatal accidents. Agricultural workers face many hazards: dangerous machinery, livestock, extremes of temperature and inclement weather, dehydration due to lack of access to potable water, and exposure to biological hazards arising from pesticides and other agro-chemicals. In doing so, the paper attempts to figure out the challenges and threats, as well as the potential for employment expansion that lies ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Female Workforce Participation Rate (FWFPR) declined in rural areas from 2004-05 onwards and it was lower than that of Male Workforce Participation Rate (MWFPR), both in rural and urban areas, in the case of India. We argue in this paper that for rural transformation (inter alia) the female labour force participation does matter. This motivated us to explore the answers for three main questions: Firstly, why FWFPR is important? Secondly, what are the trends in FWFPR in the case of India? And thirdly, what explains the decline in FWFPR in rural areas in the case of India? Using cross section data for 25 States and 7 Union Territories of India and through multiple linear regression technique, the study inds evidence that rural male workforce participation rate, rural non-farm sector share in employment, gender wage gap in rural areas and rural sex ratio are the four important variables which impact rural female workforce participation rate signiicantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The latest Human Development Index (2018) released by the United Nations Development Programme shows that India climbed one position to 130 out of 189 countries which only indicates a steady development. One of the major barriers to human development is gender inequality which persists at a global level. India's slow progress and recent trends point out towards the fact that there is a huge gap between educational and employment opportunities in case of women. One of the indicators of sustainable development goals is gender equality without which the overall development of society will be incomplete. The paper thus tries to focus on the fact that women, despite representing in higher education in large number, do not have much access to employment opportunities which push them back in economic participation. Even if women have access to some professions, they are restricted to only women oriented professions like nursing and teacher training. The persistent gender inequality in India in terms of education and employment results in overall decrease in human development index at a global level. Despite many attempts by the government in form of policies and regulations, the patriarchal mindset of the society poses a hindrance in transformation of India from being a developing country to a developed country. In light of that, the paper suggests some measures to counteract the prevailing challenges to achieve the gender equality goal of sustainable development till 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Maternal healthcare service utilization is a pivotal indicator of a nation's progress in safeguarding the health and well-being of its women and children. In this context, women's empowerment emerges as a critical determinant influencing the utilization of maternal healthcare services. The study aims to assess the relationship between women's level of empowerment and utilization of maternal healthcare services among currently married women in India. Data and Methods: The study uses data from the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey conducted in 2019–2021 and analyzed 26,552 (15–49 aged) currently married women who had a live birth in the last 5 years preceding the survey. Additionally, univariate and bivariate analyses, multivariate logistic regression, and the SWPER index were used for the analysis. Results: Over the years, utilization of antenatal care, skilled birth attainment, and postnatal care has increased extensively in India. However, the study found that utilization of services was higher among empowered women, and it varies across the state with the extent of empowerment. State-level analysis shows that the extent of women empowerment was higher in Goa, followed by Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and lower in Jharkhand, followed by Tripura, so as the utilization of maternal and health care services. The extent of empowerment and utilization of services also varies by level of educational attainment, employment, and socio-economic status. Conclusion: There is a need for comprehensive strategies to enhance women's empowerment through education, employment, political participation, self-awareness, and reduction in gender-based violence and child marriages, which may improve awareness demand for better public health structure, and may ensure higher utilization of maternal healthcare services. Ultimately, these strategies may converse the higher maternal death and child mortality. Significance: What is already known about this subject? Existing literature in India mostly highlights a clear connection between women's autonomy and maternal healthcare services utilization. Women with higher autonomy, decision-making power, and mobility are more likely to use these services. However, in exploring the link between women's empowerment and maternal healthcare, some studies focus on education, employment, and media access among Indian mothers, sidelining broader empowerment dimensions. What this study adds? This study is likely the first to investigate the relationship between women's empowerment and the level of maternal healthcare service utilization in India. It covers key dimensions of women's empowerment, including Attitude to Violence, Social Independence, and Decision-making Power. Moreover, it is possibly the first Indian research paper to employ a survey-based women's empowerment index in this context. Notably, the assessment highlights Social Independence as a significant dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper focusses on evaluating the inter-state efficiency in implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) during the COVID-19 pandemic, using data envelopment analysis. This research focussed on two objectives: (1) to analyse the technical efficiency in MGNREGA across Indian states. and (2) to identify the reference states and targets for the inefficient states for improving their efficiency. Since MGNREGA focusses on employment generation and asset creation, efficiency is estimated across these two dimensions. The results showed that there are inefficiencies in implementing MGNREGA across major and minor states of India. The mean technical efficiency across major states was 0.76 and 0.58 for asset creation and employment generation, respectively. The mean technical efficiency across minor states was 0.83 and 0.54 for asset creation and employment generation, respectively. The inefficiencies are more in terms of employment generation compared to asset creation. The states need to put in extra efforts to improve the efficiency in implementing the MGNREGA scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) of India was enacted by the Government of India with the prime objective of improving the security of the households in rural areas of the country by providing 100 days of wage employment annually to every rural household who wishes to work and ask for unskilled manual work. In this paper we have made an attempt to assess the performance of the scheme particularly in the context of how it has delivered benefits to women in the rural areas during the last fifteen years. The study found that women's socio-economic conditions have improved gradually; however, there are developmental initiatives that can be incorporated into the plan to hasten the rate of this improvement. In this context, multi-agency strategy could potentially be a successful plan for the improvement of the socio-economic situation of the rural people in the country in general and the women in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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India has been the land of the 'Queen of Textiles', that is, silk, from a very old time. At present, India occupies the second position in the production of silk in the world, only next to China while occupying the first position in the consumption of the same. Mulberry silk accounts for 69.16% of the total silk production in India and eri comprises of 20.87%. However, in the state of Assam, non-Mulberry silk (eri and muga) occupies the lion's share (around 99%) in the total silk production, thereby making the sericulture sector of Assam different from the rest of India. The IPCC (2007) has projected that the global temperature would most likely rise by 4.3 to 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the next century and silk being an agro-industrial product will be deeply affected. With muga being more susceptible to climate change, the muga cultivators would be more severely affected than the eri cultivators. In light of the above situation, this paper would attempt to analyse two issues. Firstly, it would try to see the differentiated impact of climate change on eri and muga cultivation of Assam and secondly, it would try to understand the resultant impact on rural income and employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, unorganised sector accounts for a large percentage of total employment. The global Covid-19 pandemic has attacked the unorganised sector with a health shock and an economic shock. The purpose of the study is to identify the cascading impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the quality of life of the workers in the unorganized sector. The findings of the research revealed that through exploratory factor analysis five areas have been identified where COVID-19 is having a very cascading impact on the quality of life of the workers in the unorganized sector. There exist significant difference of the cascading impact on the quality of life of the workers in the unorganised sector based on their type of occupation but does not exist any significant difference with respect to gender, age and income of the workers in the unorganized sector. The analysis of the survey reflected that construction workers are worstly hit by this pandemic. The paper has also reflected the measures adopted by the Centre and the State Government towards the upliftment of the workers in the unorganized sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it in the interest of a developing country to promote strong local linkages for domestic industries or to participate in global value chains (GVCs) wherein linkages are globally dispersed? This paper informs this debate by empirically analyzing which one of these strategies would result in higher levels of domestic value added (DVA) and employment in India. Using a unique panel data on DVA and jobs tied to Indian exports from 112 sectors for the period 1999–2000 to 2012–2013, we show that greater backward GVC participation—use of imported inputs to produce for exports—leads to higher absolute levels of gross exports, DVA and employment. This result implies that labor abundant countries can reap dividends by adopting policies aimed at strengthening their backward participation in GVCs. Our findings are robust to various estimation techniques and instrumental variable approaches to address potential endogeneity concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 2005-06 to 2015-16, proportion of cesarean deliveries in total deliveries has almost doubled in India. In this paper, we study changes in prevalence of cesarean deliveries across different social-economic groups and study factors affecting odds of undergoing cesarean delivery. The present paper was based on National Family Health Surveys and employs logistic regression. We find that rise in cesarean deliveries has been across social groups, religions, urban/rural India, wealth groups, though increase has not been uniform. Further, many economically affluent states have high proportion of cesarean deliveries. We find that women delivering at private hospitals had significantly higher odds of opting for cesarean delivery. Further, women belonging to rich households were more likely to go through surgery for birth. In case of earlier terminated pregnancies, odds were higher too. The higher odds of cesarean sections in the relatively affluent geographic regions, richer households and private institutions indicate that these procedures may be driven by non-medical reasons in many cases, pointing toward the use of surgical procedures for the convenience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID 19 Pandemic in the world, the economy was in a great depression. Still, most of the country is struggling to come out of the COVID 19 impact on their economy. The research paper is focused on the impact of the pandemic on the Indian economy by considering various parameters which define the economic condition of any country. The study considered the long-term and short-term impact on the Indian Economy. Overall the world GDP is showing negative growth during the last year and India is the one who impacted most. To analyze the data comparative analysis was used. the forecasting for the future impact of COVID 19 on the Indian economy various forecasting techniques was used such as straight line, moving average, simple linear regression, etc. Various sectors of the economy were considered to show the impact and also studied the economic reforms policy framework of government in this regard. The statistical data from the esteemed and trustworthy information sources were gathered to find out the impact of COVID 19. The data regression model was also used to analyze the collected data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tries to understand the issue of job losses associated with NATs in the Indian context. The current employment structure in India along with the sectoral pattern of availability of automation services seems to shield majority of workers in India from the potential job losses due to automation. Even though these findings are a source of relief, the author wishes to mention that the relief is only temporary. Future technological changes and innovations may reduce the barriers to automation and may make NATs ubiquitous in all spheres of economic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age structure of a country is inextricably mixed with the economic growth through demographic dividend. In this paper, the extent of demographic dividend is arrived at by distinguishing support ratios from 2004-2050.1 While encomiums are galore about the benefits and blessings of demographic dividend, its sustainability is at stake as little health and employment dividends are forthcoming out of it. The paper empirically proves that the health scenario of the country is in serious jeopardy. On unemployment, it invariably finds that there is an absolute decline in employment since 2011-12 which doesn't bode well for India.2 These corroborate the fact that realisation of dividend is illusory. The paper, therefore, pitches for spectacular spike in the allocation for health and education sectors and their prudent spending sans much ado so that population dividend can make its edifice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construction sector is associated not only with the highest revenue and employment generation but also with maximum unresolved disputes. This discrepancy is observed due to lack of an efficient dispute resolution mechanism. This paper tries to highlight the pitfalls in the current mechanism and proposes guidelines to establish a system to tackle these issues. A survey was conducted with the arbitrators, architects and engineers working in the construction sector. The paper proposes step-by-step guidelines to establish the hub that consists of a separate board and dispute resolution method as per the sector, and lays down procedures to maintain a pool of arbitrators and technical staff under its wings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "alternative", "atypical" or "informal" workforce has grown in developed and developing countries alike. One of the more recent evolutions of informal employment has been of informal employment within formal enterprises. In the interest of flexibility and cost‐reduction, many formal firms increasingly resort to hiring workers on a temporary or informal basis. Alongside, and perhaps, as a result of the persistence and pervasiveness of informal employment, issues relating to inequality have come to the fore. This paper is motivated by these two intertwining aspects of Indian labor market—informality and wage inequality. Using nationally representative sample data, the paper examines trends in wage inequality among various forms of informal workers, overlaying these findings with broader trends in inequality. Using a regression based inequality decomposition, the paper compares the sources of wage inequality across different employment groups and the reasons for differences in wage inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]