Informal Employment in India - Intersections of Caste, Gender, and Ethnicity

Maitreyi Das, University of Maryland
Sonalde Desai, University of Maryland

We pose three main research questions in our paper: 1) Is informal employment a survival strategy for the underprivileged? 2) Do education and urban residence mitigate the differences in employment strategies between the privileged and the underprivileged? and 3) Is informal employment an avenue of escape for women faced with cultural constraints and discrimination in the labor market? We use the Indian National Sample Survey 1993-94, in a weighted multinomial logistic regression, with five categories of employment status and a number of demographic independent variables such as caste, age, and education. We separately analyze men and women, in urban and rural areas, based on our hypothesis that educated Muslims and low caste individuals will be self-employed in non-farm occupations, as opposed to formal work. Women from upper castes will be out of the labor force or be self-employed, while lower caste women will be in casual work.