Urbanisation and labour marginalization: an analysis on slum employment in post-reform India
Urbanisation and labour marginalization: an analysis on slum employment in post-reform India

Summary/Abstract: While the ‘Urban Workforce Marginalization’ portrays an ongoing process of general economic exclusion in the urban areas of developing countries like India, slums are visible sites of exclusion in cities, providing refuge to a precarious labour force. In this context, this paper seeks to understand the changing pattern of employment opportunity and degree of marginal employment of the slum residents relative to that of urban India. It also reviews the supply and demand factors influencing such a change in relative employment opportunity and relative marginality of employment. The study has been done using employment and population data of the slum and urban residents from census of India for two years, 2001 and 2011. The study finds that both relative employment opportunity and relative marginal employment of the slum residents are increasing over time, signifying the growing incidence of marginal employment for the slum residents. Moreover, higher marginal employment elasticity of the slum residents due to one unit rise in output denotes increasing marginal work by the workers of slums. The study also finds that the increase in the share of the slum population to urban, as a supply-side factor, has influenced both relative employability and marginality of the slum dwellers more effectively than the demand-side factors. On the demand side, the study finds that economic growth and manufacturing sector growth influence the marginal employment of slum residents. Finally, a model abstracting the findings of this study outlines that total labour engagement in slums is determined as a result of supply-demand interaction.

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