Regional Disparities in Wage Employment Dynamics: A Decade of Economic Reforms in India

Employment creation and wage security have been primary goals of developing countries both from a national and a regional perspective. The present paper analyses the wage-employment scenario in India in the post-reform period with special emphasis on the regional dimension. The workforce structure is exhibiting upward mobility across wage classes, moving towards regular employment, and shifting in favour of tertiary sector jobs – the pace decelerating in the second half of the study period. There is a shift of middle wage level jobs from regular to casual employment, leading to declining inequality among casual workers and increased inequality among regulars. However, availability of mandays is decreasing, especially among casual workers. At the regional level, employment opportunities are getting narrowed down in the high income states but those who are employed are getting better remuneration. On the other hand, in the low income states, number of wage workers is rising but earning per worker is going down. Increasing disparity between workers of High and Low Income States, and between Regular & Casual workers are concerns that need to be addressed. Creating more mandays of work in the high income states and facilitating capacity building through education and skill formation in the low income states should be the policy focus.