Labour Reforms and Social Welfare: The Developmental Debate

Journal Title: PRAGATI: Journal of Indian Economy - Year 2017, Vol 4, Issue 2

Abstract

The much debated labour market reforms maintains the centre stage in the policy debate in India, caught in the vortex of the ‘Make in India’ campaign. The question posed by the author is how will labour law reforms address the concern of expanding employment and creating better quality employment for 78 percent of the work force in India, which do not fall within the ambit of labour laws and are classified as the unorganised sector. The second question posed is that if labour rigidities were an obstacle to increasing employment then reasons have to be traced for the significant increase in the share of contract workers in the total employment in the organised sector. Further if labour market rigidities were an obstruction, for employers to expand by hiring more workers, then the number of workers would have increased at least to a number less than 50 or 100 if the cause was to escape the implications of the labour laws since only numbers beyond this critical size of labour employed attract different laws to various degree. Thus to assess the complete picture, it is imperative to take a view of the interdependent drivers of growth like infrastructure, adequate power, access to credit etc. Most of all, the fact that more than 70 percent of workers in India earn marginal survival wage and are not protected by social security regulations, the proposed labour law reforms has the potential of increasing their vulnerabilities on account of the vagaries of globalisation.

Authors and Affiliations

Ranita Nagar

Keywords

Related Articles

Political Economy of Discretionary Transfers: A Dynamic Panel Data analysis of Indian States

Intergovernmental transfers are a major instrument to ensure smooth functioning of ‘Fiscal federalism’ in India. But the mechanism of Central transfers in India seems to be confusing and overlapping. Although a formula-b...

Education and Economic Development: A Review of Literature

This is a review paper on the impact of education on economic development. From the literature review undertaken, it is clear that the contribution of education to economic development may be positive, negative or nothin...

Self Help Group: A Strategy to Rural Development of Puri District in Odisha, India

On the basis of a micro level study for Puri district in Odisha, this paper finds that the Self Help Groups (SHGs) have played a positive and significant role in generation of employment and income of its members engaged...

Trends and Pattern of Expenditure and Infrastructure Development of Education Sector: A Study at Elementary Education Level in Odisha

This paper is an attempt to evaluate the trend and pattern of expenditure on education and progress of infrastructure related to education in Odisha. The study uses growth rate, percentage, and rank with tabulation and g...

Emerging Trends of NPAs in Priority and Non-Priority Sector in India: A Study of Public and Private Sector Banks

This paper analyses the growth and structure of NPAs in priority and non-priority sector lending of public vis-a-vis private sector banks from the year 2004 to 2017. The exponential growth rate, co-efficient of correlati...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP623919
  • DOI 10.17492/pragati.v4i02.11467
  • Views 269
  • Downloads 0

How To Cite

Ranita Nagar (2017). Labour Reforms and Social Welfare: The Developmental Debate. PRAGATI: Journal of Indian Economy, 4(2), 30-43. https://www.europub.co.uk/articles/-A-623919