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Growth, industrialisation and inequality in India
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The Indian growth process has been marked by the relative absence of structural change and the inability of faster output expansion to shift people out of low-productivity activities into higher value ones. Recent rapid growth has also been based on and resulted in growing inequalities. Private accumulation has relied upon existing social inequalities that create segmented labour markets that keep wages of certain social categories low, and on types of exclusion that allow large-scale displacement and dispossession without adequate compensation. The associated boom has required debt-driven bubbles to provide domestic demand since incomes of the masses have not risen in tandem, but such a strategy is inherently unsustainable. This growth process is now reaching the limits of its viability and is facing constraints posed by economic, social, political and environmental challenges.
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... Dengan hanya mengandalkan pertumbuhan ekonomi yang tinggi ternyata tidak dapat menunjukkan bahwa daerah itu adil dan Makmur [1,2]. Lebih lanjut, Ghosh menyatakan bahwa pertumbuhan ekonomi yang tinggi akan memicu ketimpangan pendapatan [3]. Kasus-kasus ini terjadi negara-negara dengan ketimpangan tinggi [4]. ...
... Kemiskinan merupakan kontributor utama tekanan lingkungan, degradasi, dan kerusakan lingkungan yang sulit dihindari jika penduduk masih dililit kemiskinan. Intensitas penggunaan sumber daya meningkat karena merupakan satu-satunya sumber pendapatan mereka [3]. ...
p class="15">Kabupaten Kebumen adalah kabupaten yang memiliki persentase jumlah penduduk terbesar di Jawa Tengah pada tahun 2021. Permasalahan kemiskinan sangat erat hubungannya dengan ketimpangan dan juga menjadi pemicu utama terjadinya tekanan terhadap degradasi lingkungan. Penelitian ini dilakukan di Kabupaten Kebumen dengan tujuan untuk melihat hubungan antara tingkat kemiskinan, ketimpangan pendapatan dan Indeks Kualitas Lingkungan Hidup Kabupaten Kebumen tahun 2018–2019. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kuantitatif dan menggunakan data sekunder. Metode analisis data yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah dengan alat analisis Indeks Williamson untuk mengukur ketimpangan pendapatan dan teknik uji korelasi pearson untuk melihat kekuatan hubungan antar variabel. Hasil uji korelasi menunjukkan bahwa hubungan antara variabel tingkat kemiskinan dan ketimpangan memiliki hubungan yang kuat dengan nilai -0.95 dan memiliki hubungan arah yang negatif. Begitu pula hasil uji korelasi variabel tingkat kemiskinan dengan variabel kualitas lingkungan hidup sebesar -0,94. Hubungan ini berarti terdapat hubungan negatif yang kuat antar dua variabel tersebut. Saran dari penelitian ini yaitu diharapkan pemerintah dapat mengembangkan lagi kebijakan pengentasan kemiskinan yang berbasis dengan penjagaan kelestarian lingkungan serta kondisi alam dan juga mengurangi ketimpangan pendapatan, yakni penggalakan program pendidikan non formal, meningkatkan program pemberdayaan fakir miskin, pengembangan UMKM, pengembangan lingkungan sehat, serta pengembangan kinerja pengelolaan air minum dan air limbah.</p
... A key factor behind this surge was the growing wage gap between the organized and unorganized sector, and between the urban and rural areas (Datt and Ravallion 2002;Ghosh 2015). One of the causes of this rising gap was that the remuneration of managers and capital owners grew rapidly, especially in rent sectors dependent on government licenses (for mining, metals, construction, land, real estate, and telecommunications) or in knowledge-intensive sectors such information technology and pharmaceuticals. ...
... The wages of unskilled workers belonging to scheduled castes and tribes and religious minorities continued to be penalized by social norms that discriminated them. Because of their low educational attainment and pure segregation, they could offer their work only in poorly paid sectors (Ghosh 2015;Himansu and Lanjouw 2015). The Indian Journal of Labour Economics 1 3 ISLE Kanbur et al. (2014) argue that, in the other South Asian countries and Indonesia, inequality widened because of SBTC and the lagging supply of skilled workers during the 1990s and 2000s that pushed upward the skill premium. ...
This paper assesses how correct is the view that a rise in income inequality is unavoidable in a globalizing economy characterized by rapid skill-biased technical change. To do so, it reviews the inequality trends recorded in the main developed and developing region during the last three decades. The data show that inequality rose in almost 70% of the countries with data during the years 1980–2000. These years were characterized by rapid internal and external liberalization and privatization. Yet, this trend was reversed during the subsequent decade, when Latin America and parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia recorded a decline in inequality. The evidence also suggests that while globalization and technical change may indeed increase inequality, domestic factors and policies were often behind the inequality increases of the last three decades.
... What are the implications of these findings for India's development? Overall, they are not positive, with this article adding another voice to the rising concerns about India's steeply growing inequality (e.g., Ghatak 2021;Ghosh 2015;Weisskopf 2011). Primarily bridging social capital has been linked in existing research with positive development outcomes but this form of social capital, as this study shows, declines as local-level economic inequality grows. ...
How do changing levels of local economic inequality affect households’ social capital? This article contributes to answering this question by examining the impact of village-level economic inequality in Andhra Pradesh on household levels of bridging and bonding social-network capital, using Two-Stage Least-Squares regressions of data from household surveys conducted between 2002 and 2014 by the Young Lives programme. The results of the study suggest that as local economic inequality rises, households’ bridging social capital, measured through participation in efforts to resolve broader communal issues, declines whilst their bonding social capital, measured through membership in relatively demographically and socio-economically homogeneous voluntary associations, increases. Existing research suggests that the consequently growing fragmentation of communities along demographic and socio-economic division lines is likely to contribute to social conflicts.
... The advocates of this model argue that after almost three decades of economic lib eralization and strong GDP growth, the country still has millions of people with unfulfilled basic needs. 16 The same period has witnessed widening economic inequities (e.g., Ghosh, 2015) and worsening environmental degradation (e.g., Guha, 2016), which disproportion ately affects the poor and the vulnerable. Thus they advance a model that would be based on the decentralization of decision-making to local governments and communities, local ization of economies (as opposed to globalization), and one that relies on more delibera tive and participatory mechanisms of governance (e.g., Kothari, 2016). ...
Pollution is one of the greatest causes of premature deaths and morbidity in the world, and this burden of pollution is disproportionately borne by the lower and middle income countries such as India—home to more than one-sixth of humanity. In India, due to the compound effect of its large population and high levels of environmental pollution, the human cost of pollution is among the highest in the world. The environmental degradation is partly a consequence of the development model pursued after independence in 1947 based on large-scale industrialization and exploitative resource utilization, with scant consideration for sustainability. Moreover, it is also due to the failure of the environmental administration, governance, and regulatory infrastructure to keep pace with the magnitude and pace of economic growth in India since economic liberalization in 1991.
Ironically, India was also one of the early pioneers of integrating environmental considerations into its legislative and policy-making process beginning in the early 1970s. The federal and state environmental regulation and policy framing institutions set up during this era, along with environmental legislation such as the Environment (Protection) Act 1986, are comparable in design, stringency, and comprehensiveness to other contemporary command-and-control environmental regulatory regimes in many industrially developed economies. However, the widening gap between de jure expectations of environmental compliance and the de facto state of affairs has been a great concern for environmental governance in the country.
The ongoing debates discuss several mechanisms to address the regulatory failures. The first is a greater emphasis on strengthening institutions and mechanisms that foster transparency and public disclosure by pollution sources with the intent to increase access to and credibility of information on pollution. Proponents argue this will help mobilize groups such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the general public to pressure the industry and government to improve regulatory enforcement. Second, there have been calls for wider adoption of market-based instruments that are more efficient than the traditional command-and-control approaches on which India relies. Again, information is a prerequisite for the functioning of such market-based regulatory mechanisms. Third, the legal infrastructure to facilitate expedited hearing of environmental litigation is being created. With the establishment of the National Green Tribunal in 2010, India is one of only three other countries in the world to have an exclusive judicial body to hear environmental cases. This is potentially a significant step in providing greater access to environmental justice. An emerging view, however, argues that the prevailing economic development model is incompatible with ensuring sustainable development and requires a radical rethink.
A study of the post-2011 economic slowdown in India that challenges liberal and Keynesian interpretations by drawing on Nitzan and Bichler’s argument of 2009 that modern-day capitalist activity is shaped primarily by differential rather than absolute accumulation and the accumulation of power so as to squeeze and lock out competitors, monopolize resources, sabotage production and acquire unused capacity. In an exploration of the deep-rooted entanglements of power, crisis and accumulation, firm-level data from India are examined to show that a growth slowdown, economic crisis and destruction of the livelihoods of millions of people have provided an opportunity for top corporate houses to entrench their power and wealth. Crisis, in other words, has been good for business.
Malvi nirguṇ bhajans, songs once used primarily for spiritual contemplation, are now being performed onstage in a variety of new contexts. I argue that these contexts are more than commercial opportunities and provide performers the opportunity to engage in new processes of self-authorship that I term “aspirational subjectivities.” These subjectivities amalgamate spiritual frameworks of aspiration derived from mystical poetry, socioreligious frameworks of aspiration inspired by lower-caste activist movements, and socioeconomic frameworks of aspiration spurred by India's neoliberal zeitgeist. This article demonstrates how musicians negotiate spiritual, social, and economic aspirational subjectivities through performance practice to overcome long-internalized stigmas of caste discrimination.
This article maps and analyses the trajectory of India’s Covid-19 pandemic from its onset in early 2020 until the outbreak of the country’s devastating second wave a little over a year later. I begin with a critique of the lockdown policy of the right-wing Hindu nationalist government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which served as a political spectacle rather than a public health intervention. I then proceed to detail how India as a lockdown nation witnessed forms of social suffering and political repression that can only be truly understood in light of how the trajectory and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was shaped by two preexisting crises in India’s economy and polity. In conclusion, I reflect on the likely political outcomes of the pandemic, considering both the impact of its second wave, and the emergence of oppositional sociopolitical forces in the country.
This book critically examines the persistence of market orthodoxy in post-apartheid South Africa and the civil society resistance such policies have generated over a twenty-five-year period. Each chapter unpacks the key political coalitions and economic dynamics, domestic as well as global, that have sustained neoliberalism in the country since the transition to liberal democracy in 1994. Chapter 1 analyzes the political economy of segregation and apartheid, as well as the factors that drove the democratic reform and the African National Congress’ (ANC) subsequent abandonment of redistribution in favor of neoliberal policies. Further chapters explore the causes and consequences of South Africa’s integration into the global financial markets, the limitations of the post-apartheid social welfare program, the massive labour strikes and protests that have erupted throughout the country, and the role of the IMF and World Bank in policymaking. The final chapters also examine the political and economic barriers thwarting the emergence of a viable post-apartheid developmental state, the implications of monopoly capital and foreign investment for democracy and development, and the phenomenon of state capture during the Jacob Zuma Presidency.
Shaukat Ansari received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto, Canada, and has published in several peer-reviewed journals, including African Affairs, Review of Political Economy, and International Critical Thought.
SDG 10 brings the idea of a society where each person enjoys the benefits of economic growth. In recent years, India has experienced one of the fastest growths in the world. However, the nature of economic growth can sometimes be inequality-enhancing. Therefore, in spite of high growth rate, it may not be an easy task for India to achieve the goal on reduced inequalities. A large and diverse country like India, where inequality takes on many forms, faces a bigger challenge in attaining SDG 10. In India, there are income inequalities and inequalities of access to opportunities by gender, religion, caste and region. However, based on availability of data, five indicators under SDG targets 10.1, 10.2 and 10.4 have been identified to evaluate the performance of India towards SDG 10. Based on SDG index score for reduced inequalities among 29 states, 3 states are categorised as achievers; 20 states are identified as front runners and 2 states are defined as aspirants. Though India has shown progress in achieving goal 10, it has a long way to go in order to achieve equality between top 10% and bottom 40% of the households in both urban and rural areas. It still needs to ensure equal access to opportunities for females, minorities and transgender. To create equal opportunities for all by 2030, India will need to adopt a more concrete state-specific public ‘Yojana’ (strategy). This may include enhancing coverage of the social security system, introducing and expanding social insurance schemes and establishing special funds for lagging regions.
In the factors that affect income and poverty outcomes, there are some features unique to India. Caste, ethnicity, religion and even regional origins all influence income outcomes. Therefore while examining individual poverty, the influence of social belongings on the level and the nature of access to economic endowments and the individual's ability to utilise them freely are of considerable significance. This paper examines to what extent some ethnic, religious and caste minorities suffer from chronic impoverishment, especially in rural India. What economic endowments are owned by whom and by how much? What is the level of education and occupational skill across different social groups? The analysis is based on the 61st round (2004-05) of the National Sample Survey Organisation's Consumption-Expenditure Survey.
This paper re-examines the trends in employment and unemployment as thrown up by successive National Sample Surveys from the mid-1970s. The analysis suggests that the euphoria about high employment growth during 1999-2004 was not justified nor does the concern about jobless growth in the subsequent years capture the changes in employment structure. A long-term analysis of employment trends reveals that changes in the employment pattern and workforce structure have been sluggish and do not conform to the standard employment-output relationship. The analysis also flags certain issues which have a bearing on the comparability of employment data before and after 1993-94. Large fluctuations seen after 1993-94 appear to be a result of the movement in and out of labourforce of a substantial section of the population which is vulnerable and in the informal sector in a phase of rising overall rates of economic growth. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the results of the recently released 2009-10 survey.
Large-scale surveys show that while rural women's employment has grown over the decades, women are still largely self-employed or employed as casual labour in agriculture. They face various forms of discrimination, including job-typing that pushes them into low-paying jobs. Higher work participation per se does not lead to better outcomes unless accompanied by higher education, and/or assets. Education may not positively influence a woman's participation in work, but for women who are in the workforce, education is the most important determinant of better quality non-agricultural work. Women's autonomy, measured in terms of control over land, mobility, and a willingness to join self-help groups, enables them to move into non-agricultural jobs. The paper argues for policy interventions to increase work opportunities and enhance wages for rural women workers.
There has been considerable debate in India about the impact of growth on employment especially in the organised manufacturing sector for different periods since the early 1980s. However, changes in the coverage of the Annual Survey of Industries demand a fresh look at the issue over a longer period. This paper attempts such an analysis for 1981-82 to 2004-05. For the period as a whole as well as for two separate periods - the pre-and post-reform phases-the picture that emerges is one of "jobless growth", due to the combined effect of two trends that have cancelled each other out. One set of industries was characterised by employment-creating growth while another set by employment- displacing growth. Over this period, there has been acceleration in capital intensification at the expense of creating employment. A good part of the resultant increase in labour productivity was retained by the employers as the product wage did not increase in proportion to output growth. The workers as a class thus lost in terms of both additional employment and real wages in organised manufacturing sector.
This paper outlines the dimensions and probable causes of inter-state variations of rural women’s paid and unpaid work in India. First, a broader conceptualisation of work is outlined, justified and applied to NSS data to obtain a deeper sense of the level and variations of paid and unpaid work of women and men in rural India. Second, a critical review of literature demonstrates the insufficiency of the U-hypothesis. Third, on the basis of this review, alternative propositions informed by the classical political economy of agrarian change are provided. Finally, using 2004-05 data, this alternative and the U-hypothesis on women’s work are examined. Although the empirical analysis is exploratory in nature, it amply shows how analyses that do not take cognisance of women’s unpaid work are invariably partial and blind to how women’s work is part of the development process.
In order to do business effectively in contemporary South Asia, it is necessary to understand the culture, the ethos, and the region's new trading communities. In tracing the modern-day evolution of business communities in India, this book uses social history to systematically document and understand India's new entrepreneurial groups. © Harish Damodaran, 2008. Foreword
This book provides a detailed and comprehensive account of the status of Dalits in contemporary India. It delineates their economic and social status and charts the changes since 1947 with respect to important indicators of human development. By providing statewise (and where possible, district level) data, author Sukhadeo Thorat reveals the inter-state patterns and intra-state variations of their status across the country. Using comparative methodology, the book also brings out the disparities between Dalits and the high castes in society, all the while providing explanations for these inequalities in the present context. The detailed conclusion outlines the policies required to facilitate the empowerment of Dalits. The book covers all the important parameters including: Demographic profile; Gender; Employment; Ownership of land; Poverty; Literacy and education; Health; Civil rights.
Indian industry, in several sectors, has had a history of incorporation into Global Value Chains for a couple of decades now and in some cases like that of the leather industry, this has taken place for more than half a century. The notable examples in such incorporation are Gems and Jewellery, Automotive Components, Leather and Leather Products, Sports Goods and Garments. In different industries, the extent and the level at which such incorporation has taken place varies, but whatever the position occupied in GVCs for those specific products, a substantial part of such production takes place in the unorganised or informal sector of the economy. This has been highlighted by recent publications of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS), which have looked extensively at the structure, composition and employment profile of the huge unorganised sector in India. In further work that has taken place at the NCEUS which focuses on enterprises, which the present author has been engaged in, it has been attempted to uncover the extent of interlinked production involving the informal sector and more specifically, such production that takes place in industrial clusters and for Global Value Chains. Data from the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO)
Recent debates regarding inclusion of caste in 2011 Census have raised questions about whether caste still matters in modern India. Ethnographic studies of the mid-20th century identified a variety of dimensions along which caste differentiation occurs. At the same time, whether this differentiation translates into hierarchy remains a contentious issue as does the persistence of caste, given the economic changes of the past two decades. Using data from a nationally representative survey of 41,554 households conducted in 2005, this paper examines the relationship between social background and different dimensions of well-being. The results suggest continued persistence of caste disparities in education, income and social networks.
This, the pioneering quantitative analysis of caste in the Indian urban labour market, examines the age-old problem of caste in the light of discrimination theory and government policy. Using a survey of workers in Delhi, the gross wage difference between ‘scheduled’ (untouchable) and ‘non-scheduled’ caste is decomposed into its ‘explained’ and ‘discrimination’ components and, from a model of occupation choice, into wage- and job-discrimination. Discrimination is found to exist, and to operate at least in part through the traditional mechanism, viz. assignment to jobs, with the scheduled castes entering poorly-paid ‘dead-end’ jobs. It is assisted by methods of recruitment based on contacts, prevalent in the manual occupation, which also cause past discrimination to carry over to the present. Its practice serves the economic interests of those who exercise a taste for discrimination.