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Empowerment: A Myth for Informal Workers – A Study of Female Domestic Workers of South 24 Parganas, West Bengal

Vol. 57, Issue No. 10, 05 Mar, 2022
This paper considers a few indicators and uses the principal component analysis to explain the unknown indicators in assessing empowerment of 334 female domestic workers in South 24 Parganas district in West Bengal. Household autonomy, social interaction, economic decision, activity domain and protest against domestic violence are the principal components that have a positive and significant effect on empowerment. Fair wages and access to financial support and reasonable health facilities can be a great key to improving the physical and mental well-being of domestic workers.

New Labour Codes and Their Loopholes

Vol. 55, Issue No. 40, 03 Oct, 2020

Every successive reform in labour laws fails to plug the loopholes.

Labour Law Changes

Vol. 55, Issue No. 22, 30 May, 2020
Atul Sood, Paaritosh Nath

The changes in labour laws announced during the lockdown period in several states reflect a lack of concern for the highest levels of unemployment seen in the past 45 years and the large number of workers leaving industrial pockets and returning back to an economy ravaged by agrarian distress. The events of the last few months suggest that distinctions amongst the working class in terms of organised/unorganised, formal/informal, and migrant/local are being narrowed. Labour must consolidate across the board taking anchorage in the commonalities of experience that various divisions face today.

From Balmikis to Bengalis

Vol. 54, Issue No. 47, 30 Nov, 2019
Dana Kornberg

The reorganisation of informal household garbage collection work in Delhi is analysed, as migrants from eastern states like West Bengal have begun doing manual waste work, even as their Balmikis deal only with monthly cash payments. Drawing on fieldwork, the effect on the Balmiki jamadars is noted, and the Bengali Muslims, who newly contend with the practices of untouchability in their neighbourhoods of work, are focused on. These newer migrants come to justify the shame they experience by focusing on the equivalence of scrap with money, which has redemptive potential. This reveals a dynamic process through which caste differences are being remade—”casteification”—in relation to economic life.

Inequality in India–II

Vol. 52, Issue No. 32, 12 Aug, 2017
Dipak Mazumdar, Sandip Sarkar, Balwant Singh Mehta

To determine the inequality in wage earnings, attention is paid to the distinction between formal and informal types of employment, and the returns to education. Alternative definitions to understand the formal–informal dichotomy are employed to show that employers are increasingly using “informal” workers in formal enterprises. In Part I of this paper (EPW, 29 July 2017), changes in household welfare as measured by per capita household expenditure were analysed.

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