Inclusive Development: The Role of Employment & Environment
Structural Labour Discrimination in India. A talk by Prof. Jens Lerche.
March 28, 2023
https://bangaloreinternationalcentre....
This presentation focuses on structural labour discrimination at the bottom of the labour hierarchy in India. Globally, labour market discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender and place is well documented. This is also the case for work related inequalities and discrimination along the lines of caste and ethnicity in India.
Combining labour market data with qualitative studies, this presentation by Jens Lerche shows that structural discrimination is central to labour market segmentation, also in the modern economy. This follows lines of caste, ethnicity and place.
Seasonal labour migrants, and among them especially Adivasis and Dalits, undertake the hardest, lowest paid hyper-precarious informalised jobs, often without access to the same rights as local labourers. They do this at the the cost of their and their household’s long-time social reproduction and care which is externalised by the employers. This is a result not only of direct labour market discrimination but is also based on discrimination in access to skill and historical disadvantage. The presentation concludes with a discussion of policy recommendations.
This presentation is part of a conference organized by Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) and National Law School University of India (NLS).