Abstract
Using data from nationally representative employment and unemployment surveys, this article examines the inclusiveness of Indian economic growth by looking at the changes in socio-economic inequalities in regular employment over the period 1993–1994 to 2009–2010. Our findings reveal that, at the all India level, socio-economic inequalities in regular employment increased minutely during 1993–1994 to 2009–2010. However, the changes at the regional level are mixed. Regions of the North, Central and East show a decrease against an increase in Western and North Eastern regions. In the Southern region, the socio-economic inequalities in regular employment have remained almost same.
A partir de données issues d’enquêtes représentatives à l’échelle nationale sur l’emploi et le chômage, cet article cherche à évaluer dans quelle mesure la croissance économique de l’Inde est inclusive en examinant l’évolution des inégalités socio-économiques dans l’accès à l’emploi régulier pendant la période 1993–1994 à 2009–2010. Nos résultats montrent que, au niveau national, les inégalités socio-économiques dans l’accès à l’emploi régulier ont très peu évolué au cours de la période en question. Cependant, la situation varie d’une région à l’autre. On constate en effet une réduction des inégalités dans les régions du nord, du centre et de l’est alors qu’elles ont augmenté dans les régions de l’ouest et du nord-est. Dans la région du sud, les inégalités socio-économiques dans l’accès à l’emploi régulier n’ont quasiment pas évolué.
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Notes
The 11th Indian 5-year plan (2007–2012) lays down inclusive growth as a key objective (Planning Commission, 2011). The Approach Paper of the Eleventh Plan states that the Plan provides ‘an opportunity to restructure policies to achieve a new vision based on faster, more broad-based and inclusive growth. It is designed to reduce poverty and focus on brining the various divides that continue to fragment our society’ (Government of India, 2006b, p. 1).
A few others have also defined inclusive growth. Please see Suryanarayana (2008) for a review.
The NSS surveys report the usual employment status of individuals (based on usual principal activity particulars) and group them into different categories, for example, own account worker; employer; worked as helper in household enterprise (unpaid family worker); worked as regular salaried/wage employee; worked as casual wage labour in public works; worked as casual wage labour in other types of work and so on. If an individual is a regular salaried/wage employee then s/he is considered to have regular employment.
As the 1993–1994 round of Survey categorises caste into SC, ST and Others, we could not take a more elaborate scheme of caste categorisation, namely, SCST, Other Backward Classes and Other Castes.
See Barros et al (2008) for a formal proof and other properties especially the insensitivity of SIE to a ‘balanced increase’ in regular employment.
The six specified geographical regions are: North, Central, East, North East, West and South. The Northern region comprises the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan (and the Union Territory of Chandigarh). The states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh come under the Central region. The Eastern region comprises the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa and Sikkim. The North-Eastern region includes the seven north-eastern sister states, namely, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Nagaland. The Western region includes the states of Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat (and the two Union Territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli). Finally, the Southern region comprises the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu (and the union territories of Pondicherry and Lakshadweep). Uttaranchal is a new state, which was carved out of the state of Uttar Pradesh and is considered in the Northern region. But since in 1993–1994 it was part of Uttar Pradesh, which is counted in the Central region, we have included it in the Central region for analysis. The categorisation of states into regions is similar to Singh (2012b).
The estimates for ‘Muslim, rural females’ and ‘Hindu, rural females’, though not reported in the Table 5, have been computed for a broader picture from the figures presented in the same table.
The rise in SIE index value assumes increased importance if seen in the light of Sundaram (2009), which notes that even among ‘regular wage/salaried workers’ short-term contractual arrangement is emerging, and goes on to say that this raises questions regarding stability of employment for the ‘regular wage/salaried workers’.
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Acknowledgements
We express our thanks to the two anonymous reviewers for comments and suggestions on an earlier draft. This article was written when Ashish Singh was a PhD Candidate at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
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Singh, A., Das, U. & Agrawal, T. How Inclusive Has Regular Employment Been in India? A Dynamic View. Eur J Dev Res 25, 486–494 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2013.17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2013.17