IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/1810.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Real Wages of Casual Labourers in Shillong (India)

Author

Listed:
  • Mishra, SK
  • Lyngskor, JW

Abstract

This study is an investigation into the real wage rates of casual labourers in Shillong, the capital city of Meghalaya. First, trends in nominal wages during 1997-2000 have been studied. Then the consumption expenditure of casual labourers on wage goods is analysed and finally, changes in prices of wage goods and the cost of living have been investigated during the same period. Sources of data are the primary surveys conducted by the authors. We have found that wage rate (of a general casual laborer) is about Rs. 60 per day, which in case of an unskilled laborer is about Rs. 47 only. With each of the two working members getting some job for 22.5 days in a month, an average casual labourer household earns Rs 2565 (Rs. 475 per capita per month). For an average unskilled casual laborer household these figures are Rs. 2000 and Rs. 372 (per capita). ILO (1996) defines subsistence wage as the hourly wage sufficient to buy one kilogram of the lowest-priced staple cereal. The price of 1kilogram of rice (the staple cereal in the study area) varied between Rs. 8.5 to Rs. 10.0 during 1996-1998. The range was Rs. 10 to 11.5 in 1998-2000. The upper limit of daily wage rates of unskilled casual workers was Rs. 50. Work hours (per day) were 7 to 8 hours. From these figures, the hourly wage rate works out to be Rs. 7.0 or less, which cannot buy 1 kilogram of rice. Thus, casual laborers in Shillong earn only a subsistence wage. Rice and house rent are the first two major claimants, accounting for some 40 percent of the total expenditure on wage goods. Beef, fuel and pan (+betel nuts) are the next significant claimants accounting for an additional 24 percent of the total expenditure. Potatoes, onions and vegetables together claim for some 9 percent and sugar, tea and milk together account for about 7 percent of the total expenditure. Fish, beef, meat (includes pork and mutton), potatoes, onions, vegetables and mustard oil together claim for a little over 30 percent of the total expenditure. In the later half of our study period, wages of unskilled labourers have systematically lagged behind the increase in the cost of living index. Wage rates of unskilled labourers have increased by 11 to 12 percent while the cost of living has increased by 20 percent during the study period. Wage rates of skilled labourers, which increases by (about) 80 percent or so, succeeded at overpowering the increase in the cost of living. The unlimited supply of unskilled casual labourers from the rural Meghalaya, Nepal, Bihar, Bengal, Bangla Desh, Assam, etc to Shillong has kept up an excess supply of unskilled casual labourers. However, that is not the case with the skilled casual labourers. Additionally, urbanization, development and rise in secondary and tertiary sector activities in Shillong has created jobs for skilled casual labourers more in proportion than that for the unskilled casual labourers.

Suggested Citation

  • Mishra, SK & Lyngskor, JW, 2003. "Real Wages of Casual Labourers in Shillong (India)," MPRA Paper 1810, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:1810
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/1810/1/MPRA_paper_1810.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fuente,Angel de la, 2000. "Mathematical Methods and Models for Economists," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521585293, January.
    2. Pal, Sarmistha, 2002. "Segmentation of Rural Labour Contracts: Some Further Evidence," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 151-180, April.
    3. Elina Pylkkänen, 2001. "Modeling Wages and Hours of Work," Brazilian Electronic Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, vol. 4(2), December.
    4. Ipek Ilkaracan & Raziye Selim, 2002. "The Role of Unemployment in Wage Determination: Further Evidence on the Wage Curve from Turkey," SCEPA working paper series. 2002-11, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
    5. Morishima,Michio, 1976. "The Economic Theory of Modern Society," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521291682, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. SK Mishra & JW Lyngskor, 2005. "Nutritional Aspects of Poverty among Casual Labourer Households in Shillong (India)," Others 0505011, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. SK Mishra & JW Lyngskor, 2005. "Poverty, Dietary Imbalance and Sickness among Casual Labourer Households in Shillong (India)," Others 0505012, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Mishra, SK, 2003. "Issues and problems in human resource development in the NER (India)," MPRA Paper 1828, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Millock, Katrin & Xabadia, Angels & Zilberman, David, 2012. "Policy for the adoption of new environmental monitoring technologies to manage stock externalities," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 102-116.
    2. Terstiege, Stefan, 2013. "Precontractual Investigation and Sequential Screening," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 429, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    3. G L Clark, 1984. "Does Inflation Vary between Cities?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 16(4), pages 513-527, April.
    4. Francesco Caruso & Maria Carmela Ceparano & Jacqueline Morgan, 2017. "Uniqueness of Nash Equilibrium in Continuous Weighted Potential Games," CSEF Working Papers 471, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 18 Jun 2017.
    5. Todorova, Tamara, 2013. "Solving optimal timing problems elegantly," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 4(6), pages 95-105.
    6. John Stachurski, 2009. "Economic Dynamics: Theory and Computation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262012774, December.
    7. Jagjit S. Chadha, 2009. "Monetary Policy Analysis: An Undergraduate Toolkit," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Giuseppe Fontana & Mark Setterfield (ed.), Macroeconomic Theory and Macroeconomic Pedagogy, chapter 3, pages 55-75, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Carina-Elena Stegăroiu & Valentin Stegăroiu, 2010. "Algorithms For The Processes Of Establishing Prices And Balanced Bank Interests," Annals of the University of Petrosani, Economics, University of Petrosani, Romania, vol. 10(4), pages 327-336.
    9. Herweg, Fabian, 2020. "Overlapping efforts in the EU Emissions Trading System," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    10. Aurélie Darpeix & Céline Bignebat & Philippe Perrier-Cornet, 2014. "Demand for Seasonal Wage Labour in Agriculture: What Does Family Farming Hide?," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(1), pages 257-272, January.
    11. Balart, Pau, 2021. "Semiorder preferences and price-oriented buyers in a Hotelling model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 394-407.
    12. Toichiro Asada, 1991. "On a mixed competitive-monopolistic macrodynamic model in a monetary economy," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 33-53, February.
    13. Kurose, Kazuhiro & Yoshihara, Naoki, 2016. "The Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson Model and the Cambridge Capital Controversies," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2016-05, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    14. Miguel Viegas & Ana Ribeiro, 2015. "Welfare and inequality effects of debt consolidation processes: the case of Spain, 1996–2007," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 479-496, November.
    15. Andreas Roider, 2006. "Delegation of Authority as an Optimal (In)Complete Contract," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 162(3), pages 391-411, September.
    16. Zhang, Zhuoye & Zhang, Fangni, 2024. "Optimal operation strategies of an urban crowdshipping platform in asset-light, asset-medium, or asset-heavy business format," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    17. Wolfram Merzyn & Gabor Virag & Stephan Lauermann, 2010. "Aggregate uncertainty and learning in a search model," 2010 Meeting Papers 1235, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Sulka, Tomasz, 2022. "Planning and saving for retirement," DICE Discussion Papers 384, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    19. Yang, Hai & Leung, Cowina W.Y. & Wong, S.C. & Bell, Michael G.H., 2010. "Equilibria of bilateral taxi-customer searching and meeting on networks," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(8-9), pages 1067-1083, September.
    20. Jan Eeckhout & Philipp Kircher, 2010. "Sorting and Decentralized Price Competition," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(2), pages 539-574, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Real wages; casual labourers; cost of life index; Shillong; Meghalaya; wage goods; subsistence wage; consumption expenditure; India;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • R10 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:1810. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.