Content area
Full Text
Labour, Employment and Economic Growth in India, Edited by K.V. Ramaswamy, Cambridge University Press, New Delhi, 2015. Pp. 339.
The volume brings together an impressive collection of ten studies dealing with the structure of labour markets in India and the policies affecting their differential performance across sectors and regions of the country. Part 1 of the volume consisting of seven papers is mainly devoted to analysing the empirical data on size, composition and growth of employment and related parameters such as participation rates, poverty and skill development. The remaining four papers in Part 2 have focused attention on the functioning of labour markets in relation to the legal architecture of regulatory institutions. The latter collection of papers is immensely rich with ideas and analytical insights.
Many papers in the volume are of remarkably superior quality; but there is absence of an organising grid binding them together. The editor has done a fine job of assembling the papers, and presenting their gist in an introductory chapter. A comparative assessment of the contents and common strands of arguments in different papers would have been a worthwhile exercise. For instance a topic that figures prominently in several papers concerns the call for making labour markets more flexible. A structured review of the conceptual and practical issues involved in labour law reforms as argued by different authors would have added more value to the introductory chapter.
The first paper by Jayan Thomas on "India's Labour Market during the 2000s: An Overview" is an elegantly crafted piece giving several insightful observations on the evolution of labour markets in recent decades. Major structural changes occurred in the Indian economy from early 2000s onwards and these changes were mainly reflected in the growth of employment in non-agricultural sectors. Between 2004-05 and 2011-12, the agricultural workforce declined by 37 million while the nonagricultural workforce increased by 48 million, so much so there is little justification for describing the employment growth since the mid-2000s as jobless. With a careful review of data, Thomas settles several contentious issues concerning the growth of employment that cropped up in recent debates.
The author lists two factors for having contributed to a withdrawal of workers from agriculture. First is a marked increase of employment in construction involving rural...