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The India–Bangladesh border is the world's fifth longest land border, a focus of political tension in an area with vibrant informal economies. Cross-border communities share culture and language and informal cross-border trade (ICBT) is well-established. This article explores ICBT on the Indian side of the border, examining its actors, power relations and spatial dimensions, and the vulnerabilities of those involved. Debates on the social and cultural roots of ICBT, and the vulnerability of small-scale entrepreneurs to a complicit state, and powerful middlemen in lucrative sectors of ICBT, inform the analysis. The trade is theorized through the lens of jugaad, the Indian term for 'making do' and 'instinctive creativity'. The research draws on case studies of three cross-border sectors, everyday trade in small household goods, the politically sensitive cattle trade, and cross-border medical/healthcare services. The mechanisms of jugaad are seen to some degree in all three case studies, but heavy state regulation gives advantage to controlling middlemen and state officials. Finally, we argue that ICBT is a critical component of the wider political economy in the border regions of West Bengal, and that the forgotten sector of ICBT could, if supported by light-touch regulation, have important poverty-reduction potential in enabling livelihoods for marginalized border communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

About 91% of India's workforce of 520 million is informal, lacking social insurance. However, this paper finds the Social Security Code 2020 wanting, but with potential for universalizing social insurance. The paper spells out the principles that should guide social insurance for informal workers; and presents the design and architecture for extending coverage. It shows how realistically, over the next 10–15 years, social insurance could cover the entire workforce, in accordance with ILO Conventions. It also estimates the fiscal cost of social insurance, for the first five years, and spells out the political economy, fiscal and administrative challenges to universalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In developing countries like India, the majority of the workforce is informal. There is no specific study about the important factors that influence the consumption expenditure of informal workers working in urban areas. The purpose of this paper, thus, is to identify the determinants of the consumption expenditures of urban informal workers, and the same is explored with respect to migration and gender. In this regard, a primary survey was conducted at the household level of the informal sector workers following the method of multi‐stage stratified sampling. The method of analysis of variance and a binary logistic regression model is employed. The inferences of the study explained that the expenditure pattern of the informal worker depends on socio‐economic factors—age group, income level and essential commodities like milk, kerosene, oil and child education. The study also highlights the fact that the informal workers are dragged into the web of a vicious circle of poverty due to a higher level of consumption expenditure than income and demonstrates the effect of betel‐tendu leaf mini cigarette‐tobacco‐alcohol. Hence, it is desirable that the policymakers should frame a regulated subsidised pricing policy for essential commodities as well as increase the minimum wage rate in order to strengthen the basic consumption expenditure of the informal workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subcontracting relations have often been considered a key channel to facilitate growth in traditional informal enterprises and enable them to transition into larger, modern enterprises. Such relations are expected to strengthen with economic growth. Using nationally representative survey data for the Indian informal manufacturing sector, this article examines the nature and patterns of subcontracting linkages for informal family‐based household enterprises over the high‐growth period of 2001–2016. The article estimates the net accumulation fund (NAF) for these enterprises, which measures their ability to accumulate, and studies the transition possibilities of subcontracted enterprises over time. Results show that the NAFs of subcontracted enterprises remained much lower than those of non‐subcontracted ones, with the disparity growing over the growth period. A vast majority of subcontracted household enterprises are embedded in relations that are akin to a traditional putting‐out system, with little control over their production processes. Female‐owned enterprises and those located within the household are more likely to be in such put‐out relations. Average NAF for put‐out household enterprises has been lower than for relatively autonomous subcontracted and non‐subcontracted firms, although over time the gap in NAF between put‐out and non‐put‐out firms, and thus their differential ability to transition, has narrowed. The prevailing nature of subcontracting relations in India's informal economy, even during the peak growth period, appears to be starkly different from the dynamic linkages that are celebrated in the literature as a channel for facilitating growth and transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation: The development of human capital is a priority for most nation states, accelerated by the COVID‐19 global pandemic. In the context of reimagining a "new normal" post‐COVID, we reconsider the concept of human capital, and focus on knowledge, skills, and training of individuals in order to capture aspects of inclusive development. Purpose: This paper shows how the perspective of women, informal sector workers, representing some of the most marginalized workers in society, informs and improves our understanding of human capital and its development and utilization. Methods and approach: Our findings are derived from field‐based research conducted over the summer of 2021 in which multiple (virtual) focus group discussions (FGDs) were held with selected members of the Self‐Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in India. Findings: Through our FGDs, the participants provided new perspectives and insights into our knowledge of human capital, emphasizing the importance of social protection programmes, gender equity, ongoing training opportunities, decentralized supply chains, and income security. Perhaps most significantly, the benefits accrued to women through being organized have been key to unlocking their human capital potential. Policy implications: Our research highlights themes that are often overlooked in the literature or are beyond the scope of more narrow conceptualizations of human capital. We show that human capital is tightly interwoven with other forms of capital (community assets), and hence efforts to build the former cannot be achieved in isolation from attending to the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on social entrepreneurship primarily reduces social enterprises in the Global South to geographic variations of an idealized concept of combining commercial imperatives with social missions. In the article, I see social enterprise practice in economies of the Global South, namely India and South Africa, as channels to engage in the ongoing theorization of the field. The article draws on the frame of actually existing neoliberalism, moving beyond macroperspectives and policy imperatives on social entrepreneurship to show how neoliberal rationalities are mobilized and regulated by emancipatory rationalities and agendas. The empirical focus is on social enterprises mediating enterprise formation to address employment concerns in the informal, noncapital domains of India and South Africa. I draw on data from the ethnographic fieldwork on mediating social enterprises collected during my doctoral research. The lived realities of practice of the two intermediaries considered in the article, Dhwani in India and EntShare in South Africa, show mediating social enterprises in ongoing negotiations with capital and noncapital domains. Understanding the negotiations explains the convergences and divergences in how neoliberal economic rationalities align with progressive and emancipatory agendas and values across India and South Africa. In doing so, the article provides an opportunity to enrich conceptual registers of postcolonial economic geography by tracing and articulating mediation processes between neoliberal and nonneoliberal rationalities not solely from one site but across contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Home-based work is among the largest forms of employment in the informal economy in India and is overwhelmingly represented by women. Employing a social reproduction framework that reframes what is counted as labor, this article asks how women's unpaid work activities are appropriated as labor in subcontracted home-based work. Applying this analytical framework, it becomes clear that domestic work in the home, often completed by women, is needed and exploited in this production process as a result of gendered constructs of care. The contribution considers how unpaid work is directly appropriated by capital as surplus value. The context of informal work is key here because of the irregular and fragmented production process, the space where work occurs, and the use of unpaid family workers. The goal of this research is to offer empirical evidence that broadens analytical perspectives to account for the context of informality in the Global South. HIGHLIGHTS Subcontracted home-based work in India relies on a gendered, fragmented, and precarious labor force. Unpaid caregiving and household work directly contributes to profit-making. Western analytical concepts of the economy need to be reexamined in the context of the postcolonial informal economies. Research tools that measure economic participation need to capture how unpaid activities directly or indirectly contribute to economic processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subcontracting occurs when a producer outsources a part of its production. We study the effect of subcontracting from a firm with buyer power on the profits of subcontracted upstream firms, and how profits vary on the basis of location of firm and owner's gender. Subcontracting is the treatment in our study and the dependent variable is the ratio of Gross Value Added to Sales adjusted or unadjusted for wages. The decision of a firm to subcontract or not is endogenous, so we cannot use OLS regression. Since we cannot have information on a firm being treated and non-treated at the same time, we use the Average Treatment Effect on Treated (ATET) model with Nearest Neighborhood Matching (NNM) approach, in which each treated firm is matched to an untreated firm which is its nearest neighbor on other parameters, to see the effect of treatment on outcome variable on the treated group had they been not treated. We find the existence of a subcontracting premium where being in a subcontracting relationship is beneficial for the informal sector firm, though the magnitude of this premium is small, and female-headed firms gain less from subcontracting. Subcontracted male-owned firms earn a higher premium but also pay more wages out of their total revenue to labor as compared to female-owned firms, perhaps because the latter are more likely to be Own Account Manufacturing Enterprises (OAME) which do not employ hired workers. Our results show that buyer power of the subcontracting firms is offset by the benefits they provide to the subcontracted firms, possibly in the form of assured demand and payments. Thus, policies favoring the informal sector firms need to incorporate the benefits of subcontracting by exploring alternative modes of distribution with lower distribution margins, such as cooperative societies or online platforms for example Amul, MEESHO. Policies should also focus on reducing the profit margin differential between male and female owned firms by formulating a proper channel using mass media to communicate credit information and updates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the contradictions of neoliberal urbanism in the context of Indian cities. Focusing on gated neighborhoods as a quintessential feature of neoliberal urbanism, it unpacks the changing meaning and significance of gated neighborhoods (GNs) and their representative organizations, the Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs), in mediating the relationship between the propertied middle classes and the urban poor. A few decades into the making, I argue that neoliberal urbanism is beginning to produce contradictory outcomes through its specific elements such as the GNs. Using the case of domestic workers, I show that domestic workers are performing collective actions and targeting GNs as a whole. Domestic workers' actions are subverting the purpose of physical features and institutional features of GNs to their advantage as workers. How can middle-class residents' tools of control and exclusion become the new means of power and resistance for a section of the urban poor—domestic workers? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Indian government initiated several skill development policies and different types of vocational education and training (VET). Yet the participation in skill education is low because of poor labour market outcomes. This paper aims to calculate returns to skill education to understand the type of training that will have better labour market outcomes. Design/methodology/approach: In this paper nationally representative data from the periodic labour force survey (PLFS), collected by the national sample survey office for 2017–2018, are used to estimate the returns to formal and non-formal VET obtained (after different levels of general education) with the help of Heckman's two-stage method. Findings: Nearly 8% of the working-age population has received some form of VET (mostly non-formal), generating poor returns. For the overall population, formal on-job training (OJT) and full-time VET influence wage positively and significantly. Full-time VET obtained after secondary and below levels of education generates positive returns, whereas part-time VET is profitable only to those without formal education. At the graduate level, technical education obtained along with VET is associated with better wages. Originality/value: In India where a considerable proportion of the workforce is employed in the informal sector, different types of skill training like full-time, part-time and OJT influence labour market outcomes. This finding has policy implication for countries with large informal sector and calls for further research in such countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the relationship between scientific knowledge and democracy in India, using COVID-19 as a case study. It shows how the state consolidates itself through technological fixes, ignoring deeper issues in civil society. The essay covers the impact of COVID-19 on migrants and the informal economy and suggests that civil society needs a biopolitics from below. It discusses the need to rework concepts like citizenship and vulnerability and cautions that the epidemic has to be seen as a prelude to the deeper demands of the Anthropocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large proportion of the older population in India constitutes an undeniable share of workforce after the retirement age. This stresses the need to understand the implications of working at older ages on health outcomes. The main objective of this study is to examine the variations in health outcomes by formal/informal sector of employment of older workers using the first wave of the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India. Using binary logistic regression models, the results of this study affirm that type of work does play a significant role in determining health outcomes even after controlling socio-economic, demographic, life-style behaviour, childhood health and work characteristics. The risk of Poor Cognitive Functioning (PCF) is high among informal workers, while formal workers suffer greatly from Chronic Health Conditions (CHC) and Functional Limitations (FL). Moreover, the risk of PCF and/or FL among formal workers increases with the increase in risk of CHC. Therefore, the present research study underscores the relevance of policies focusing on providing health and healthcare benefits by respective economic activity and socio-economic position of older workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this expository essay, we argue for building a fresh research programme in the political economy of development to analytically investigate and empirically substantiate the specificities of postcolonial capitalism. A key theoretical framework developed through the work of Kalyan Sanyal may be built upon, reformulated and productively deployed for this purpose. We provide a purposive engagement with this framework, its critiques, and the extant literature that develops it further. Some illustrations based on the agricultural and non-agricultural informal economies in India are provided to highlight the significance of this framework in examining the contemporary processes of capitalist development in the global South. The informal segments are marked by a persistence and reproduction of large swathes of non-capitalist economic spaces that are majorly structured around the logic of satisfying consumption needs, without discernible tendencies towards a classical pattern of capitalist transition. These spaces act as holding grounds of the population that is excluded from the capitalist growth poles of the economy and are often rendered as an undesired excess (as a surplus population) for the process of capitalist reproduction. Such a framework may also provide a compelling theoretical structure to interrogate the vast economic and political changes in the global landscape in the current conjuncture, and their implications for labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the poor in the developing world work in the informal economy, that is, in occupations that take place outside of the legal system of taxing, spending, and regulating. This article examines how informal work impacts the policy and electoral preferences of the poor. We emphasize the importance of the risks inherent in informal employment in shaping the responsiveness of citizens to clientelism and their policy and voting preferences. Since most informal workers are not covered by (formal) social insurance, they prefer material goods and candidates that produce targeted, clientelistic benefits rather than programmatically delivered insurance that is unlikely to reach them. As a result, we argue that informal workers are more likely to rely on clientelistic relations as a means of hedging risks than are formal workers; prefer policies that are delivered clientelistically via political mediators rather than programmatic solutions; and prefer clientelistic over programmatic local candidates. Our findings elucidate why the preferences of poor informal workers often diverge from those assumed by standard models of social insurance and have important implications for the political economy of social policy in a world where billions work outside work-based tax-transfer systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSDs) are a major health issue for low-income countries because of their high prevalence among workers and on account of the scarcity of ergonomic preventative measures in the workplace. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of WRMSDs among weavers, assess their consequences, and analyse the associated occupational risk factors. Method: A cross-sectional survey was carried out among 257 handloom weavers using the Nordic questionnaire and the working conditions were assessed through a descriptive analysis using the key indicator method. Results: The WRMSDs annual prevalence was 85% in all parts of the body, 71% for the low back region, 41% for the shoulders, and 37% for the knees. One quarter of the weavers indicated having stopped work for 1-30 days because of their low back pain (LBP). The prevalence of WRMSDs was associated with the number of hours worked per day, the years of experience, and age. Long working hours, load carrying (> 20 kg - 25 kg), awkward postures, repetitive limb movements, and unfavourable environmental conditions were identified as occupational risk factors. Conclusion: Work-related musculoskeletal disorders are common among weavers and LBP is the most frequently cited disorder and the primary reason for work interruptions and a decrease of activities. The prevalence of WRMSDs is associated with professional and personal factors. Actions based on ergonomic rules are necessary to prevent WRMSDs. Clinical implications: Our study highlights the issue of WRMSDs and the need for prevention in the informal sector, which constitutes the major part of economic activity in low-income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The paper documents developments in Indian economic performance and the role of structural change in this performance. • Manufacturing is dominated by informal labor, which has a deleterious effect on overall manufacturing performance. • Productivity growth is driven by within sector growth, with positive contributions of formal and informal activities to this. • Labor reallocation to the informal segment of the manufacturing sector is growth reducing in the Indian manufacturing sector. • A shift to more productive informal activities across sub-sectors exists, but this doesn't offset the negative within effect. This paper examines the role of structural change in India's performance, and in particular the role of the informal segment in the stagnant growth of the Indian manufacturing sector. Using counterfactual analysis – including a modified shift-share approach – the paper considers to what extent the informal sector can help explain the poor performance of Indian manufacturing over the period 1980-2011. The results suggest that the informal segment of manufacturing has been a drag on overall manufacturing productivity growth, with the informal manufacturing segment unable to provide a productivity bonus when absorbing workers from the agricultural sector. Results from the shift-share analysis indicate that labor reallocation to the informal segment of the manufacturing sector is growth-reducing, with structural change being the main source of this reduction, an effect which in turn is driven by movements of employment within manufacturing sub-sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews three veins of contributions on contemporary petty commodity production in Marxian political economy, with reference to India. Through a comparative analysis of the works of Henry Bernstein, Kalyan Sanyal, and Barbara Harriss-White, the article maps areas of commonality and contestation between the three theoretical constructions and makes a case for the merits of Harriss-White's framework over others. JEL Classification: B510, O170 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: Siguiendo el marco de Dingeldey et al. (2021), pero con un enfoque cualitativo, se analiza la segmentación legal del trabajo en China, la India, Malasia y Viet Nam, prestando atención a los niveles de exclusión y a las jerarquías de protección otorgada. El autor observa varios factores que diferencian a estos países de los del Norte y que determinan sus mercados de trabajo: el tamaño relativo de la población activa que opera fuera de la cobertura efectiva de la reglamentación laboral; la terminología jurídica, de difícil traducción a los idiomas occidentales; y la historia jurídica, especialmente en lo que respecta al desajuste entre los marcos jurídicos y el mercado laboral resultante del colonialismo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covid-19 exposed the fragility and inadequacies in India's health care system, especially in its public health services. The sudden lockdown imposed during the first wave of the virus severely impacted the livelihoods of millions of migrant workers. Then, in spite of warnings about an impending second wave of infection, the government's failure to prepare the health infrastructure, together with delays in vaccine distribution, cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Unlike the first wave of infection, the second wave impacted rural India very badly. Taking into consideration the existing social hierarchies and inequalities, it was marginalised groups of the population who bore the brunt of the pandemic. This article analyses the failures of the Indian government in handling the Covid-19 crisis, especially during the second wave, and concludes by suggesting ways in which the state needs to intervene to avert disasters of this kind in the future. It argues for the adoption of a 'rights-based' approach to public health on the grounds that successive governments have not been properly held to account for their long-term failures to address the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In the process of school-to-work transition, the role of general education and vocational education and training (VET) remains quite central. Based on the human capital theory, we estimate whether investment in VET brings additional returns for workers across the age cohorts. Design/methodology/approach: The focus of our study being the labour market in India, the data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey 2018–19, conducted by the National Statistical Office, has been used for analysis. We have applied the ordinary least square method with sample selection correction, the quasi-experimental technique of propensity score matching and heteroskedasticity based instrumental variable approach to estimate the returns with respect to no VET, formal VET and informal VET. Findings: Our study shows that workers with formal VET earn higher wages than workers with no VET or informal VET. The study finds that workers with informal VET do not earn higher wages than workers with no VET. Moreover, from the age cohort analysis, we have deduced that wage advantage of workers with formal VET persists across all age cohorts and, in fact, accentuates with an increase in age. Originality/value: We have estimated that VET being complemented with basic general education fetches higher returns in the labour market, especially when provided through formal channels. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, in the case of developing countries where informal VET is widely provided, this is one of the first studies that captures the return to informal VET. Lastly, complementing the existing studies on the developed countries, we have estimated the returns to VET over the life cycle of the workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most developing countries have large and persistent informal sector. Historically, the literature was dominated by strict duality viewpoint, where the formal and informal sectors are treated as two separate entities. However, in recent times, a new approach has developed where the formal and informal sectors are not binary but they often co-exist and feed into each other. Most academic work on agglomeration economies is based on developed countries where almost all production takes place in the formal sector. Apriori, there is no reason to believe that agglomeration economies do not extend to the informal sector. Hence, in this paper, we hypothesize that agglomeration economies can arise from the interaction between formal and informal firms as well. To check the validity of the hypothesis, we study the geographic distribution and Coagglomeration pattern between formal and informal manufacturing firms in India. Using the firm level National Sample Survey for unincorporated enterprises and Annual Survey of Industries data, we calculate the Ellison and Glaeser Coagglomeration index at 2-digit NIC level. Further, using the Marshall's theory of agglomeration, we create four kinds of linkages to capture the nature of interdependence between formal and informal firms, i.e. Buyer, Supplier, Labor and Technology. We find that there is heavy clustering of both formal and informal manufacturing firms in India, however, mostly in different areas, with few exceptions like Western Uttar Pradesh and Southern Tamil Nadu. Out of 22 major industries, we find high coagglomeration only in 7. The average value of coagglomeration index at aggregate level decreases from 0.00536 in 2000-01 to -0.0027 in 2015-16. This indicate towards reduced interdependence over time, however in few industries it remains high. The average value of labor linkage increased from 0.1889 in 2000-01 to 0.3651 in 2015-16, during the same period buyer linkage remained constant around 0.2481 and supplier linkage fell from 0.5755 to 0.2749. The technology linkage remained low throughout in the range of 0.02-0.03. Strong buyer and labor linkage mean subcontracting of inputs is the main motive driving the interaction between formal and informal firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes access to finance based on the usage of financial services by Indian households. Based on two rounds of nationally representative All India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS) for 2002 and 2012, we examine how access to credit is associated with a household's socioeconomic and demographic characteristics using Heckman's two-step approach procedure. Our results show that belonging to higher asset quintile groups has a statistically significant positive effect on the household's decision to take loans only from the formal sector in both rounds and significant negative effects on taking a loan only from the informal sector. Similarly, social and religious groups play a significant role in the decision of the household to take a loan. Households with more educated adults are more likely to take a loan. Households involved in regular wage-earning occupations in urban areas are more likely to take a loan from formal sources. Thus, the importance of policy placing greater emphasis on demand-side barriers rather than on improving the physical availability of formal financial services to promote financial inclusion in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gig work has been considered 'disruptive' by platforms for its market efficiency, but concerns around precarity of work in the Global North have been raised since the early 2000s. In India, the dominance of informal work makes precarious work the norm, thus begging the question, does gig work disrupt or extend this precarity in new directions? Based on in-depth interviews with gig workers in India, this paper explores the relations between the informal economy and platform-based gig work in India with a focus on the experiences of workers. The paper argues that, much like informal work, gig workers bear a disproportionate risk, with their work regulated by social identities of caste and gender that determine entry and exit from work. The digital mediation of work in the gig economy extends such existing social relations of informal work into gig work, especially as labour remains deregulated by the Indian state. Through this, India points us in the direction of what the future of work may be for workers in a global digitised gig economy where such precarious and insecure work is now increasingly entrenched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. This empirical study aims to conceptualise the prevalence of Informal Vocational Training (IVT) in India. It also explores the missing link at accreditation level between IVTs and other formal vocational, technical and professional courses and depicts their implications in the occupational, economic, social and cultural lives of people. Methods. This study was conducted in the Srinagar city of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir in India. Both the survey method and the case method were used for collecting the primary data and applying triangulation methodologically. Results. This study reveals that elites generally dominate in the prestigious technical and professional courses because of better accessibility and affordability, and that the vulnerable sections miss many of these opportunities. The vulnerable sections very often get the benefits of IVTs learnt outside the formal system in finding some employment, but such employment attracts lower prestige and income than what they get through formal technical and professional courses. IVTs find no academic recognition in the existing accreditation system, and so people culturally and socially associated with these IVTs continue to remain deprived. Conclusion. There is a need to develop a credit-based link between IVTs and formal vocational, technical and professional courses so that the skills learnt thro ugh IVTs could get transferred to the formal system and attract better occupational and economic rewards. The findings are relevant for both developing and developed societies, but more particularly for societies having a considerable presence of informal economy because IVTs exist more within these economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does informal economic activity respond to increased financial inclusion? Does it become more entrepreneurial? Does access to new financing options change the gender configuration of informal economic activity and, if so, in what ways and what directions? We take advantage of nationwide data collected in 2010/11 and 2015/16 by India's National Sample Survey Office on unorganized (informal) enterprises. This period was one of rapid expansion of banking availability aimed particularly at the unbanked, under-banked, and women. We find strong empirical evidence supporting the crucial role of financial access in promoting entrepreneurship among informal sector firms in India. Our results are robust to alternative specifications and alternative measures of financial constraints using an approach combining propensity score matching and difference-in-differences. However, we do not find conclusive evidence that increased financial inclusion leads to a higher likelihood of women becoming entrepreneurs than men in the informal sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of globalization, the informal sector enterprises are also exposed to international competition; and therefore, they need to remain productive and competitive. In this regard, innovation is an obvious strategic choice at the firm level. Drawing from the data gathered through an extensive field survey in NCT-Delhi, India, this study observes that innovation activities in the informal enterprises take place mostly through non-research-and-development routes and rely more on interactive learning and learning by doing. The econometric analysis shows that formal interactions through subcontracting and membership in the industrial associations along with informal interactions with other firms, buyer–supplier interactions, and social capital are having positive and significant influence on product, process, and marketing innovation. However, this study reveals that formal interactions play a vital role in introducing marketing innovations. Further, the results show the essential role of in-house training, entrepreneurial expertise, and information communication technology usage at the firm level. Thus, the paper provides empirical evidence reiterating the importance of integrating informal manufacturing enterprises and their learning processes as the key components of the innovation system in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian women enter the informal workforce for a range of reasons. Women food vendors tend to dominate low-income, low-skill activities, such as selling perishable food items. The aim of this study was to investigate the experiences of women food vendors in India. Twenty-four women were interviewed in 2015 and 2016 about financial matters, livelihoods, family, and housing, and the experience of vending. Findings indicate that women vendors are financially vulnerable, need greater access to education, better work and living conditions, and greater financial management options. Policies and programmes aimed at informal sector workers must recognise gender-specific vulnerabilities facing women vendors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will analyze rural-urban migrant workers' multiple journeys of financial secrecies, gendered solidarities and covert income-management through the use of smartphones and net-banking in the city. Using the narratives of informal domestic workers in Kolkata, a city in eastern India, I show how migrant women managed a shadow network of personal savings, free of surveillance from their rural kin, that was creatively positioned at the interface of modern digital technologies and traditional social relations. I develop the concept of 'migra-monies' to underline how such hidden cash flows within migration landscapes emboldened female workers to envision non-normative gendered subjectivities and economically secure fiscal futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The many Muslim women who make up India's burgeoning informal economy, challenge any attempt to reduce them to homemakers whose lives are delimited by culture and religion. An examination of their lives reveals the complex forces that shape their worlds, and illuminates how they variously negotiate landscapes of inequality in contemporary India. Here I focus on the biography of one Muslim widow to illustrate how she labours to live and dream in contemporary India as various social forces intersect to create precarity in her life. While neoliberal priorities and a shrinking social safety-net affect underprivileged women across religious lines, the intersection of gender, class, and religion in Hindu majoritarian India has made it even more challenging for low-income Muslim women like her to make ends meet. However, dominant forces are not totalising, and the biographical method reveals how one woman negotiates precarity, employing various skills as she adapts to changing conditions, juggling multiple jobs to meet expenses, and envisioning a better future. We see not just the deep inequalities that create precarity for some, but also how dreams can be a material force in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 crisis has translated into an unprecedented humanitarian crisis for the poor and marginalized groups in society. The countrywide lockdowns, quarantine measures, and mobility restrictions across 200 countries of the world have resulted in a host of negative manifestations for women. There have been unprecedented losses in the informal economy, which is dominated by women. Some scholars also contend that the pandemic will translate into heightened burden of unpaid domestic work, loss of economic autonomy and disruption to maternal health services. Despite these factors a gendered perspective is absent in the policy response to this crisis. It is against this background that the present paper employed a feminist intersectionality lens to conduct participatory field based research on the lived experiences of women in informal employment in Indian Punjab during the COVID‐19 crisis. The research unearthed the specific pathways through which existing socio‐economic inequities rooted in caste, class and occupational entities magnify the vulnerabilities experienced by women during such a health crisis. The research offers a contextualized framework for understanding the gendered impacts of the crisis. It also highlights the urgency of taking account of gender specific constraints during the health crisis so as to institute robust, effective and equitable policy interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Goods and Services Tax (GST) was introduced in India in 2017, and it has been a game-changer for businesses. This article examines the impact of GST on the Indian business landscape, noting that it has increased efficiency, enhanced competitiveness, and eased the doing of business in the country. The article talks about the need for a unified taxation system that led to the introduction of GST. The outline discusses the challenges that businesses face concerning compliance under GST, including registration, understanding threshold limits, payment of taxes, filing of returns, and GST audits. Positive and negative impacts of GST on businesses are identified, and the initial challenges faced during the migration to a new taxation regime, technological infrastructure requirements, and short-term liquidity issues are analyzed. Moreover, the article discusses the overall impact of GST on small-sized enterprises, increased compliance costs, the complexity of return filings, and the impact on the informal sector. This article concludes with an examination of the complexities of the GST system and the need for continuous improvements to ease compliance and facilitate the growth of businesses in India. Throughout the work, references support the author's perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dominant strand of orthodoxy argues that the problem of the informal sector could be mitigated through the capitalistic growth process. But our observations on India are different—with an expansion of the capitalistic formal sector, as the economy grows, there is a proliferation of fissured informality. Using a structuralist macro-model, we provide certain explanations for this phenomenon, which are also tested empirically using Indian subnational-state and firm-level data. Thus, we explore both the short- and long-run effects of the expansion of the formal sector on the heterogeneous informal economy. While a section of the population is pulled into the advanced informal activities, a vast segment is pushed to petty production. Accordingly, the orthodox transition narrative is questioned and alternative policy and political possibilities are introduced. JEL Classification: O11, O13, O17, P48 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I demonstrate, through the use of the life course perspective, how informal work in the form of verbal wage contracts might lead to dignity and autonomy amongst the rural poor. The article draws attention to a broader comparative context of how indigenous autonomies are produced. In that they have the relative freedom to engage in a range of informal work as discussed, the Gonds' autonomy in a neoliberal sense consists of self-governance, which draws attention to the indigenous community's conception of the self as an economic and autonomous entity that is sustained by a range of social networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the nation-wide covid-19 lockdown was implemented, a large number of workers who were engaged in beedi work (tobacco manufacturing industry) lost their daily wage work. These people had migrated to metro cities almost ten years ago for their livelihood, working in this perilous industry. Soon thereafter, though, they felt that they had no choice but return to the hazardous beedi work. This narrative tells the story of the formation and development of a small group that aimed to provide relief for the beedi laborers and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digitization of taxation systems can assist inclusion. However, it can also inadvertently lead to adverse outcomes for the poor in developing countries where many firms in the informal sector have low capabilities. Moreover, larger formal sector firms are often politically networked and in a position to engage in extractive informal transactions that digitization alone cannot restrict. Thus, while digitization creates tools for the enforcement of formal regulations, formalization can be unequal. This contribution focuses on digitized taxation as an application of a more general problem with digitization as a tool for formalization, referring to evidence from the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in India. Using the analysis of political settlements, the authors distinguish between types of rule violations in developing economies. Networked higher‐capability firms engage in 'informal' transactions when they violate rules to extract rents. This is different from the informality of unregistered micro and small enterprises in the informal sector who often violate rules they cannot adhere to, and make informal payments to enforcers to continue operating. When digital technologies are used in these contexts, adverse outcomes for welfare and inclusion can follow from 'premature formalization'. A more cautious and inclusive path to formalization is necessary to protect vulnerable groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a traumatic lockdown in 2020, India's migrant factory workers have headed back to work and on worse terms than before. Struggling with new levels of denial of entitlements, workers respond by withdrawing from their fragile hold on formality, moving instead further into the informal sector. Based on voice notes recorded on Saajha Manch, a phone‐based community media platform, the paper examines workers' experience that their efforts to claim their rights lure them into a quagmire in a bureaucracy which sucks their energy while assuring no clear outcome. Seeing evidence of failed enforcement and structural inequality all around them, workers conclude that the law is not meant for them and hence show little interest in the new labour codes hastily enacted at the height of the pandemic. The paper highlights the dysfunction of the formal sector in delivering to its low‐waged workers who remain unserved in spite of registration and documentation in place. As they join the ranks of informality, however, migrant factory workers do not lose interest in associative and contentious activity. On the contrary, freedom from the bureaucracy of rights may be a boost to new forms of struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Installed capacity of formal sector is below the estimated e-waste generation rate. • Seven authorized e-waste recycling facilities are described in detail. • Two unauthorized e-waste recycling facilities are described. • Metals, plastic and glass can be recovered sustainably by the formal sector. • Collection centers are inadequate for the formal sector. Nowadays, old electrical and electronic gadgets are being replaced constantly by newer versions resulting in huge amounts of waste electronic and electrical products that are collectively termed e-waste. It is estimated that 95% of e-waste recycling in India is done by the informal sector at the cost of their health and the environment. Very little data and no descriptions of recycling processes in the formal sector in India were available in the literature. The objective of this study was to evaluate the status of formal and informal e-waste recycling facilities in India. Seven authorized e-waste handling facilities in West Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Delhi were visited and most were involved in dismantling work only. In all cases, metals, plastic and glass are recovered from e-waste in compliance with environmental legislation. Challenges faced by the formal sector include lack of awareness among people and very few collection centers throughout the country. Quantification of e-waste generated in India was difficult as imported second-hand electrical and electronic gadgets cannot be separated for electronic waste. There is no mechanism for collecting data regarding e-waste generation in the states or at the Central government level. It is likely that published estimates are based on the indigenous production and import of electrical and electronic goods. The current installed e-waste handling capacity of 11 × 105 tons/year of e-waste in the country is woefully inadequate and needs to be enhanced as the minimum requirement is estimated to be 22 × 105 tons/year of e-waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the role of peasant production within the larger process of capitalist accumulation in India. It engages with two distinct theoretical positions — Kalyan Sanyal's formulation of the 'need economy' which is driven by an objective of need fulfilment outside the domain of capitalist production, and Henry Bernstein's thesis on the irrelevance of the agrarian question of capital as discussed by Jens Lerche in the particular context of India. The article extends the category of the 'need economy' from the present focus on the non‐agricultural informal sector to include smallholder or peasant agriculture. In doing so, the analysis demonstrates that the position of Bernstein and Lerche on the irrelevance of the agrarian question of capital and its replacement with a new agrarian question of labour is consistent with Sanyal's conceptualization of the 'need economy'. Further, by providing evidence in support of the key function of food provisioning undertaken by small and marginal farmers in India, the article highlights how both the positions above fail to incorporate the food linkage of agriculture that is vital for the continuation of capitalist accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown in India resulted in women informal economy workers being out of jobs and with no social security blanket to rely on. Women community leaders therefore worked with the state to reach out to the most vulnerable and marginalised populations. This resulted in decentralised units where decisions are made at the community level in a collective fashion including critical and diverse stakeholders, in collaboration with state authorities. This model works best where locally developed networks with high levels of community trust exist that enable community leaders to reach communities in distress quickly and effectively, ensuring that relief and aid is delivered to those who need it the most. Additionally, women coming together to advocate for themselves as women workers allows for us to build back better with a key focus on marginal populations such as women at the bottom of the pyramid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's informal economy accounts for more than half the country's GDP but is characterised by low levels of skills, and considerable barriers to skills development for workers. The Government of India has implemented ambitious policy initiatives for upskilling, designed to catalyse 'formalisation' of the economy, and improve productivity. However, evidence on skills development remains weak. Drawing on systematic review methodologies, this article reviews and synthesises the literature on the practical barriers to upskilling. It finds that access to, and quality of, training (especially for women) are serious limitations, while skills are often under-utilised in the absence of supportive labour market and wider business environment conditions. Training is often insufficiently linked to labour market and learner needs, and the capacity of the training system is limited. Government should increase investment in training for the informal sector, and consider strengthening incentives for training providers to focus on improving training quality and relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why does the migrated worker face with the crisis of livelihoods in general and informal sectors in India, particularly during the age of corona? Migrant workers in informal sectors constitute a major percentage of total workforces in India, who have contributed for the economic development. Due to the overlapping nature of migration, it would not be possible to estimate the exact numbers of migrated people in India. This article is an attempt to discuss about how workers are deprived in informal sectors. Again, the study also discusses how, in the age of coronavirus pandemic, millions of workers, faced with higher form of informalistion, faced with the threat of survival. Secondary data are used as methodology. This article argues that, in India, maximum numbers of workers, who migrated from poor Human Development Index (HDI)‐scored states to high HDI‐scored states, faced with higher informalistion of their jobs, due to deprivation from basic rights in the age of Corona. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Women in Agriculture form a significant portion of the productive work force in Indian economy. Occupational Health is a vital component of nation's infrastructure and it focuses on the physical, mental and social well being of workers. In India, Occupational Heath among agricultural women is a public health issue which needs immediate attention. Objectives: To study the association between health and agriculture, the occupational hazards and health problems faced by agricultural women workers and the related policy provisions in India. Methods: An extensive literature review and data search were done using online search engines, peer reviewed articles and the reports of various departments of Government of India. Results: The result reveals that Occupational health hazards have a direct impact on the physical and mental health of women workers. Conclusion: Implementation of social security and welfare measures by the Government for the agricultural women could enhance the health of women workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing informality in developing economies, identifying correlates of informality continues to be a challenge due to multiple definitions of informality as well as data limitations. In order to explain the determinants of informality, the authors use two operational definitions of informality, namely 'informal sector' and 'informal employment', based on enterprise characteristics and employment characteristics, respectively. Using unit-level data from a nationally representative dataset, the authors find that, irrespective of how informality is defined, workers' education, vocational training and gender play a significant role in determining participation in the informal labour market. The results of this study are robust to correction for selection bias and controlling for regional variations. The findings emphasise the need to restructure skill development programmes to account for the heterogeneity of informal workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We take off from the recent critiques of precarity as an emerging global phenomenon to argue that the processes of precarity in the Global North and the Global South need to be analytically distinguished to bring forth their specificities. We further argue that such an analysis challenges the idea of development as transition, as is prevalent in much of the literature. We focus on the informal economy in India to show that the notion of precarity conceptually involves three distinct aspects of production and labor processes—"non-capitalist" petty commodity production (PCP), subcontracted PCP, and informal wage-labor. We argue that these dimensions have their own particularities that have distinct implications for the process of capitalist development in India. We contend that reproduction of these informal spaces during a period of high economic growth unsettles the imaginary of development as transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We identify a basic dualism within the informal manufacturing sector (IMS) in India between a 'traditional'/non-capitalist segment, comprising family-based household enterprises that constitute the vast majority of the IMS, and a segment of 'modern'/capitalist enterprises employing wage labour. We focus on the high-growth decade of 2000–2001 to 2010–2011 to analyse whether there has been a marked tendency of this 'traditional' segment to transform into a 'modern' segment. We construct a variable, the net accumulation fund, which indicates the ability of an enterprise to accumulate and grow, and explore its evolution, over time and across industries, for enterprises with different production structures and firm-level characteristics. We show that while, on one hand, the average 'traditional' enterprise has been able to economically reproduce itself rather than withering away, the dualism between the 'traditional'/non-capitalist and the 'modern'/capitalist segments has been reproduced and further reinforced during this period of high economic growth, raising questions about the process of economic transformation as envisaged in much of development literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been substantial recent interest in the decline of labour shares across many countries. For the most part, attention has been focused on developed countries. This article examines the evolution of India's labour share in its formal industrial sector from 1983 to 2016. Using two datasets corresponding to sectoral aggregate data and plant‐level data respectively, the authors document a secular decline in the labour share across all sectors from 1983, with a stabilization at very low levels (around 8 to 10 per cent) starting around 2007. The plant‐level data are used to identify correlates that illuminate reasons for the overall decline in the labour share. The authors find strong evidence to support multiple causes, including increased capital intensity, greater informalization, greater privatization, and productivity increases in larger firms; they therefore suggest that the declines in labour share experienced are due to a composite set of factors. Conversely, other potential explanations (such as regional variation in the labour share) have less explanatory power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the informal tourism sector in India as a case study, this article demonstrates ethnographically that dichotomous classifications often taken for granted when conceptualizing human mobilities are undermined in people's everyday practices. One of them is the binary between mobile cosmopolitan tourists ("guests" from the Global North) and local "hosts" (i.e. service providers from the Global South), who are denied the right to be mobile. The aim of the article is to overcome these outdated anthropological conceptualizations of the sedentary Other, based on ethnological naturalism and currently reproduced in the tourism marketing, in the context of global mobility regimes. The article shows that a high level of mobility is not only an attribute of tourists, but it also characterizes the "locals," who work in the informal tourism sector in India. It also reveals the multiple ways that various forms of people's spatial mobility – such as tourism and migration – intersect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scholarship on innovation hitherto has prioritized exchange value, scalability and large scale commercialization, overlooking the other significant human centric values discussed in 'value theory'. Consequently, innovations in the informal economy are often undermined due to their inability to generate exchange values. This paper identifies and examines the suitability of the nuanced set of values discussed in value theory for informal sector grassroots innovations. Based on ten years of ethnographic research in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir in India, we find that these innovations generate a diverse set of values, ranging from use value to socially embedded reciprocal exchange value to different forms of relational and non-relational intrinsic values. At a juncture when strengthening alternative innovation approaches occupies a priority, these findings have important bearing on innovation policy scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]