Decency of primary occupations in the Indian fishing industry

Indian fisheries are moving from artisanal to capitalistic methods of production. As this transformation takes place, many traditional fishers are forced to seek employment on trawlers and other fishing vessels owing to their lack of a capital base to purchase modern vessels themselves. Competition among trawlers can lead to cost reducing strategies that lower the quality of working conditions for those employed in these vessels. This paper is an attempt to assess the working conditions of these workers through the use of indicators developed by the International Labour Office in the context of decent work. By utilizing data collected in the National Sample Survey Organization’s (NSSO) 68th round survey of employment and unemployment, we find that there are some areas in which decency of work is lacking. The level of job security is highly inadequate among most workers in fisheries. There is a marked absence of women in the labour pool, especially in unskilled tasks. Child labour, while not a cause for alarming concern, exists to a minor degree in the industry. Furthermore, freshwater fishing was found to afford lower standards of work than marine fishing. Regulation and policy action are called into requirement by these observations.