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Skilled-unskilled wage gap without discrimination – the case of India

Author

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  • Suganya Balakumar
  • Subhasankar Chattopadhyay

Abstract

Both skilled and unskilled workers are employed formally and informally in developing economies. However, workers employed informally are often discriminated – they receive lower returns to their individual characteristics compared to those employed formally. What would be the skilled-unskilled wage gap if there were no such discrimination in the labour market? We show that the with-discrimination wage gap is more if the unskilled workers are discriminated more in their employment-share weighted terms. We propose a methodology based on Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition technique to estimate the without-discrimination wage gap, apply it to four rounds of Indian NSSO employment data and find that (i) both types of workers face discrimination, and (ii) the without-discrimination wage gap is significantly less. We also check for the possibility of female workers getting discriminated more in informal employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Suganya Balakumar & Subhasankar Chattopadhyay, 2021. "Skilled-unskilled wage gap without discrimination – the case of India," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(19), pages 1690-1697, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:28:y:2021:i:19:p:1690-1697
    DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2020.1851644
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