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The Informal Labour Market in India: Transitory or Permanent Employment for Migrants?

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  • Junankar, Pramod N. (Raja)

    (University of New South Wales)

  • Shonchoy, Abu S.

    (Florida International University)

Abstract

This paper studies the characteristics of the workers in the informal economy and whether migrants treat this sector as a temporary location before moving on to the organised or formal sector to improve their life time income and life style. We limit our study to the Indian urban (non-Agricultural) sector and study the characteristics of the household heads that belong to the Informal Sector (Self Employed and Informal Wage Workers) and the Formal Sector. We find that household heads that are less educated, come from the poorer households, lower social groups (castes and religions) are more likely to be in the informal sector. We distinguish between migrants who come from rural areas and urban areas to their present urban location. We find that the longer duration of a rural migrant in the urban area, the lower the probability that the household head would be in the informal wage labour sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Junankar, Pramod N. (Raja) & Shonchoy, Abu S., 2013. "The Informal Labour Market in India: Transitory or Permanent Employment for Migrants?," IZA Discussion Papers 7587, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7587
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    Cited by:

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    2. Paraskevi Koufopoulou & Colin C. Williams & Athanassios Vozikis & Kyriakos Souliotis, 2019. "Shadow Economy: Definitions, terms & theoretical considerations," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 9(5), pages 1-3.
    3. Ambika Tandon & Aayush Rathi, 2024. "Sustaining urban labour markets: Situating migration and domestic work in India's ‘gig’ economy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(4), pages 1245-1261, June.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    migrant; informal labour markets; caste; religion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J42 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets

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