2007 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
New Aspects of the Urban Labor Market under Economic Reforms in India
| Project/Area Number |
17530226
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Economic policy
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| Research Institution | Ferris University |
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Principal Investigator |
KISO Junko Ferris University, Faculty of Global and Intercultural Studies, Professor (70192557)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2005 – 2007
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| Keywords | Economic status / Economic liberalization / Labor market / Factory workers / International Research Exchange / India |
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| Research Abstract |
The objective of this research was to explore the changes that occurred in the labor market in India since the inception of economic reforms in the 1990s and to investigate the causes behind these changes. The research focused on the recently emerging aspects of the Indian labor market such as 'jobless growth' and 'polarisation' as well as the flexibilisation of the labor market, which has come to be a focus of debate on labor reform.
The following four points were the main research issues. First, I aim to understand the recent trends in the labor market, and second, I study the Indian labor policy and labor-related institutions. Third, I consider the implications of flexibility in the urban labor market from the standpoint of the workers, on the basis of a field survey. In other words, I attempted to grasp each worker's job history and their intergenerational mobility in order to understand the social and economic changes that have occurred in the urban labor class after the implementa
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tion of the economic reforms. Fourth, I conduct a broad and comprehensive research review on labor and employment in India.
Thus, this research presented the reality and causes of 'jobless growth', the changing and unchanging labor policy/institutions, the realities of labor market flexibility, i.e. one-way flexibility with an exit but' without an entrance, the screening mechanism in the urban labor market, and other such aspects. Furthermore, a noteworthy point is that during this research, I was able to realize the third survey on (ex-) factory workers, who were also surveyed in 1991 and 1998, as a long-term panel survey on the urban labor class and in addition investigated the gap and mobility between different generations of workers, based on another survey on their children. I expect that this research on labor and employment at both the micro and macro levels will help to deepen the understandings of the problems relating to economic development and poverty in India. Finally, a field survey on 'labor elites' who appear to be at the core of the new middle class and an investigation of their potential for expansion will be the subjects of further study. Less
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Research Products
(14 results)
