An analysis of self-employment opportunities for marginal workers in urban and suburban India (Essay Sample)

An analysis of self-employment opportunities for marginal workers in urban and suburban India Introduction The Indian Census of 2011 classified workers in India into two broad categories. The first category comprised of those workers who have working opportunities for more than 6 months in a year; these were classified as 'main workers'. The second category known as 'marginal workers' are those who get a chance to work for less than 183 days or 6 months in a year. This classification has existed in the Indian census terminology since the 1981 census. Interestingly as per the census data from 1991 and 2011, it is observed that the percentage growth in marginal workers is higher in India as compared to main workers during the 1991 to 2011 period. It has also been observed that the while during the 1981 to 1991 period the increase of the marginal workers included more female workers, the trend has reversed and more male workers have entered the marginal worker category as compared to females whose percentage has decreased in the 1991-2011 period. The rate of increase in the workforce, overall in India has been more than the population growth rate which shows a higher Work Participation rate. CITATION MVe13 \l 1033 (M. Venkatanarayana, 2013). This report attempts to analyze the reason behind the huge numbers of marginal workers and why they are unable to find full-time jobs. Their education levels would be examined to find any linkages and the decrease in the female marginal workers among the total marginal worker population in 2011 would also be analyzed. Efforts to support the marginal workers are discussed as well as solutions would be presented throughout the paper and at the end to solve the issue of giving more job opportunities to the marginal workers in India in the urban and suburban areas. 1981-2011 Census Data and ‘Marginal Workers’ The 2011 census data was obtained through Indian census operations conducted during the second phase of the census that took place between 9-28 February 2011 which was related to Population Enumeration. As a part of the census classification, the marginal workers had been divided into two sub-categories: marginal workers who work less than 3 months a year and those who work less than 6 months in a year. The occupation of the marginal workers was determined in the 2011 census was relevant to the type of work the person had done in the one year before the enumeration. As a part of the scope of the census, the 'type of industry, services or trade' as a category for the work was recorded as well besides the person’s occupation. It was preferred that the work 'actually' done by the worker was recorded as such. The marginal workers were classified under ‘House hold Industry’ workers or ‘Other workers’ CITATION DAT11 \l 1033 (CENSUS OF INDIA 2011 META DATA, 2011). Between 1981 and 2001, the marginal workers' work participation rate was constant in the first ten years but the data in 2001 showed a much larger increase. The female marginal worker participation rate showed a relatively higher increase as compared to male workers during this period. The increase in marginal workers between 2001 and 2011 clearly points to an increase in a business culture that employs on ad hoc basis. Either the companies are trying to cut the labor costs to a minimum or that they are not inclined to offer quality jobs that carry retirement benefits and health insurance, etc. Interestingly, a similar phenomenon is not just confined to India. Even in the USA, the entrepreneurship that are springing up and offering job opportunities to the youth are not offering quality jobs as they are not giving health coverage and retirement benefits. Although these workers in the USA are not marginal workers yet they are deprived of long-term employment benefits. Indian government planning to create 50 million jobs by 2020 The Indian Government has embarked upon a program to create 50 million jobs by 2020 in response to the increase in marginal workers since 2001. Digital solution based jobs would form a good number of these jobs. The rest would be through job fairs. The 50 million jobs target translates to 10,25 million jobs per year on the average between 2017 and 2020. The pressure on the job market would be from both marginal workers as well as non-workers. Data shows that short-term employment is on the increase in India CITATION Dip17 \l 1033 (Jain, 2017). Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1 Increase in marginal workers and their proportion in total jobs Source: CITATION Dip17 \l 1033 (Jain, 2017). Unfortunately, the increase in jobs per year since 2011 has not been sufficient to stem the tide of more workers joining the rank of marginal workers. Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 2 Increase in jobs created per year (in thousands) since 2011 Source: CITATION Dip17 \l 1033 (Jain, 2017). Some government job creation programs have created jobs which marginals workers have also taken benefit of have succeeded in creating just over 1.1 million jobs in the period from 2014 to October 2016. Experts also contend that monetization has affected both urban jobs in India and therefore a sound employment scheme for marginal workers is a necessary requirement. Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 3 Job creation since 2011 Source: CITATION Dip17 \l 1033 (Jain, 2017). Probable Cause of any possible fluctuation in Marginal workers The marginal workforce can also show an increase in case non-participants join them temporarily. This is likely to happen usually when wages in certain urban and suburban areas rise. Thus, if the number of marginal workers shows fluctuations, these are most likely due to temporary participation by non-participants. ILO’s analysis As per the commentary of the International Labor organization on the different labor trends in India, the share of the informal worker (which includes marginal workers going in and out) has increased from 2004 to 2012 the main reason being the use of contract labor and some other ways to employ casual labor to save costs. Thus, the share of informal workers including marginal workers in the economy of India in 2012 stood at around a staggering figure of 92%. This includes both informally organized sector workers plus unorganized sector workers CITATION Ada171 \l 1033 (Tooze, 2017). Table: 1 Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 4 Marginal Workers in Urban areas can be approximated as HHI plus others Source: CITATION MVe13 \l 1033 (M. Venkatanarayana, 2013). Growing capitalist Economy The table shows a huge increase in non-agricultural urban and suburban employment. The marginal workers add another unique dimension to the informal workers. They symbolize irregular and interrupted work with a lot of flexibility. These are strong signs of a growing capitalist economy and the added dimension of worker migration to urban and suburban areas further adds complexity but dynamism to the situation. Findings contrary to the grand theory of development As per the grand theory of development, as labor migrates to cities, the growth of the industry absorbs the workforce and the GDP percentage of non-agricultural sector increases CITATION Lew54 \l 1033 (Lewis, 1954). However, the trend here exhibits a slower growth in the industrial sector absorption. Even though in India, the non-agricultural sector has grown in leaps and bounds in the last decade, the findings are in total contrast. That shows that there might be something different in the workforce structure CITATION Ada171 \l 1033 (Tooze, 2017). Experts point out to the rapid changeover to the capital intensiveness of the industrial growth in India in the recent years as compared to the gradual shift from labor intensive to the capital intensive pattern in the west over centuries. Thus, the grand development theory which is based on a European experience might not be fully relevant here. This would greatly reduce the level of industrial labor force adoption and increase unemployment or increase the number of marginal workers. The capital-intensive industry requires highly skilled workforce and the low level of education in India as compared to Western countries seems to be the cause. Employers seek highly skilled workers while employees seek jobs but there seems to be not enough match between the requirement of the two parties CITATION Mon13 \l 1033 (Mourshed, Farrel, & Barton, 2013). Ideally, the workforce needs to be trained in skills as fast as the capital-intensive industry is set up but this is easier said than done. One solution can be that the capitalists setting up the industry get the workforce trained themselves while they plan the setup but such an ideal type of long-term investments in human capital related to university education have not been witnessed anywhere in the globe either. If ideally, such an investment was possible, the marginal workforce would be directly affected and a part of it would be converted to /main worker’ status in the long run. Industrialists would be required to allocate huge funds under such a scheme however, the fruits would be plenty in the long run. The selection of the recruits as to who would be trained can simply be based on their IQ, aptitude and basic college education. This is not as simple as it sounds. The industrialists acting as a conglomerate would need to get the university programs revised to include the high skills required for future projects and support the universities with funds to run those programs besides getting their recruits funded for masters and Ph.D. programs in the required fields of expertise. To attempt such a solution which undauntedly would help the industrial sector, in the long run, would be extremely hard to sell to the industrialists but wisdom would prevail if the government can convince them to do this for their own sake and perhaps extend a helping hand by giving them some tax incentives. A ’wrong version’ of ...