IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/93319.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gender inequality in wage and employment in Indian labour market

Author

Listed:
  • Lama, Sita
  • Majumder, Rajarshi

Abstract

The labour market suffers from several imperfections, most of which act against the women. They face entry barriers which act as a deterrent and discourage them to enter labour market. Using nationally representative sample data collected by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) 2011-12 through quinquennial surveys on “Employment and Unemployment”, the paper tries to examine the prevalence of various forms of inequality and the condition of workers across formal and informal sectors, as well as across gender, location and work status. Oaxaca decomposition technique (Oaxaca 1973) is also used to examine the contribution of inequality factors to overall inequality. A substantial wage disparity is found across workers of different regions, sectors and gender. Women workers earn much lower wages than their male counterparts and the inequality among them is also much higher. The analysis also suggested a comparatively a high gender wage gap in various categories of activities. It is surprising to find that in India the wage disparity exists mainly because of large wage difference within the various categories of workers. Further, the examination of the sources of wage difference reveals that gender wage gap is mostly because of discrimination in wage distribution against women workers. The endowment is the greater contributing factor in case of wage gaps between regular and casual workers and also for rural and urban divides.

Suggested Citation

  • Lama, Sita & Majumder, Rajarshi, 2018. "Gender inequality in wage and employment in Indian labour market," MPRA Paper 93319, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:93319
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/93319/1/lama.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    2. Jandhyala Tilak, 2002. "Education and Poverty," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 191-207.
    3. Peter J. Dolton & Michael P. Kidd, 1994. "Occupational Access And Wage Discrimination," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 56(4), pages 457-474, November.
    4. Majumder, Rajarshi, 2011. "Female labour supply in india: proximate determinants," MPRA Paper 43250, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Oct 2012.
    5. Mukherjee, Dipa & Majumder, Rajarshi, 2011. "Occupational Pattern, Wage Rates and Earning Disparities in India: A Decomposition Analysis," Indian Economic Review, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, vol. 46(1), pages 131-152.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Raquel Vale Mendes, 2009. "Gender wage differentials and occupational distribution," Notas Económicas, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, issue 29, pages 26-40, June.
    2. Deshpande, Ashwini & Goel, Deepti & Khanna, Shantanu, 2018. "Bad Karma or Discrimination? Male–Female Wage Gaps Among Salaried Workers in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 331-344.
    3. Stavros Arvanitis & Theodoros Stamatopoulos & Eleftherios Thalassinos, 2011. "Gender Wage Gap: Evidence from the Hellenic Maritime Sector 1995-2002," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(1), pages 93-104.
    4. Nick Drydakis, 2014. "Bullying at school and labour market outcomes," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 35(8), pages 1185-1211, October.
    5. Heinze, Anja & Beninger, Denis & Beblo, Miriam & Laisney, François, 2003. "Measuring Selectivity-Corrected Gender Wage Gaps in the EU," ZEW Discussion Papers 03-74, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Siew, Ching Goy & Johnes, Geraint, 2012. "Revisiting The Impact of Occupational Segregation on the Gender Earnings Gap in Malaysia," Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, vol. 46(1), pages 13-25.
    7. Zweimuller, J & Winter-Ebmer, R, 1994. "Gender Wage Differentials in Private and Public Sector Jobs," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 7(3), pages 271-285, July.
    8. Pedro Orraca & Francisco Javier Cabrera & Gustavo Iriarte, 2016. "The gender wage gap and occupational segregation in the Mexican labour market," EconoQuantum, Revista de Economia y Negocios, Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Economico Administrativas, Departamento de Metodos Cuantitativos y Maestria en Economia., vol. 13(1), pages 51-72, Enero-Jun.
    9. Satinder Singh & J. K. Parida & I. C. Awasthi, 0. "Employability and Earning Differentials Among Technically and Vocationally Trained Youth in India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 0, pages 1-24.
    10. Pedro Orraca & Francisco-Javier Cabrera & Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas A. C., 2016. "The gender wage gap and occupational segregation in the Mexican labour market," EconoQuantum, Revista de Economia y Finanzas, Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Economico Administrativas, Departamento de Metodos Cuantitativos y Maestria en Economia., vol. 13(1), pages 51-72, Enero-Jun.
    11. Satinder Singh & J. K. Parida & I. C. Awasthi, 2020. "Employability and Earning Differentials Among Technically and Vocationally Trained Youth in India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(2), pages 363-386, June.
    12. Pascale Petit, 2004. "Effet des syndicats sur les inégalités entre les femmes et les hommes : une revue de la littérature," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques v04076, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    13. Amita Majumder & Chayanika Mitra, 2017. "Gender Bias in Education in West Bengal," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 15(1), pages 173-196, March.
    14. Soumyajit Chakraborty & Alok K. Bohara, 2021. "The Cost of Being ‘Backward’ in India: Socio-religious Discrimination in the Labour Market," Indian Journal of Human Development, , vol. 15(2), pages 252-274, August.
    15. Marie Leclair & Pascale Petit, 2004. "Présence syndicale dans les établissements : quel effet sur les inégalités salariales entre les hommes et les femmes ?," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques v04084, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    16. Gupta, Pallavi & Kothe, Satyanarayan, 2021. "Gender Discrimination and the Biased Indian Labour Market: Evidence from the National Sample Survey," MPRA Paper 110205, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Raquel Vale Mendes, 2005. "Occupational segregation and the Portuguese gender wage gap," ERSA conference papers ersa05p130, European Regional Science Association.
    18. Alison L. Booth, 2006. "The Glass Ceiling in Europe: Why Are Women Doing Badly in the Labour Market?," CEPR Discussion Papers 542, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    19. Michael E. Martell & Peyton Nash, 2020. "For Love and Money? Earnings and Marriage Among Same-Sex Couples," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 260-294, September.
    20. Heitmueller, Axel, 2005. "A Note on Decompositions in Fixed Effects Models in the Presence of Time-Invariant Characteristics," IZA Discussion Papers 1886, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labour; Gender Gap; Wage Decomposition; Informal Sector; Discrimination; India;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    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:93319. 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.