Abstract
How the urban labour market in developing countries function and how individuals access jobs are pertinent questions, particularly in the context of low-income households in cities. The concept of ‘social capital’ provides a substantive basis to the understanding of some of these questions. The caste-kinship bonds and contacts through co-villagers and co-residents of the cluster in which they reside have been quite dominant amongst the low-income households in pursuing rural-based search for urban jobs and, finally, for migrating to the urban areas to get employed (see Sovani 1964; Banerjee 1986, 1991; Banerjee and Bucci 1994; Mitra 1994). The concept of ‘social capital’ tends to offer a formal definition to these channels and highlights their relevance in the context of development and policy planning. Social capitals, as Putnam (1993) defined, are those features of social organisations such as trust, norms and networks that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions. It is the networking that helps create linkages, which in turn forge rules, conventions and norms governing the development process (Chopra 2002).
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Notes
- 1.
The channels of information flow and support mechanisms at times are given exogenously in the sense that the contacts that the job seekers have with close relatives, members of the same caste groups and friends are an outcome of long-term interactions and familial ties carried over generations. However, in due course, some of the contacts are developed gradually, and they are endogenous from the individual point of view. Channels operating through previous/present employers/colleagues are possibly some examples of such endogenously determined contacts.
- 2.
In explaining migration across space, income differentials are taken as a motivating factor in moving people from low-income areas to relatively high-income areas (Harris and Todaro 1970). Lall et al. (2006) synthesise the current state of knowledge concerning internal migration in developing countries.
- 3.
The project on urban poverty was carried out at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi.
- 4.
The list of registered or recognised slum clusters is available with the local governments. Information on the unrecognised or unregistered slum clusters is not available as a result of which, these had to be left out.
- 5.
On an average, 17 households were taken from each of the 30 clusters in each of the 4 cities. The sample is representative of the slum population in each city.
- 6.
Nearly half of the workers have been employed in this category.
- 7.
Though in our sample their number is quite small, this category of workers, as the macro data show, is on the rise in response to contractualisation pursued explicitly in the recent years.
- 8.
Exception is Jaipur.
- 9.
Informal sector is characterised by small size, lack of union, low capital-labour ratio and the inapplicability of government regulation. Informally employed in the formal sector means contract labour hired through other agencies, that is, dispatched labour and casual daily-wage labour working in the formal sector.
- 10.
However, due to the lack of information at the place of migration, this kind of an exercise could not be carried out with precision. On the other hand, we have attempted a binomial logit model distinguishing between the migrants up to 10 years duration (represented by 1) and the non-migrants including the very-long-duration migrants who have been residing in the city for more than 10 years (represented by 0). This exercise is pursued at the individual level.
- 11.
(NTW1), (NTW2), (NTW3), (NTW4), (NTW5), (NTW6) and (NTW7) respectively.
Though part of NTW6 (those who accessed jobs through government employment exchanges) does not fall into the domain of social capital, their number is miniscule and, hence these cases have been clubbed with the rest.
The effect of the networks mentioned above is examined in the occupational choice model keeping self-initiative (i.e. those who pursued job search independently) as the comparison category.
- 12.
Dummies (EDUi = 1, 2.3): with illiterates as the reference category, EDU1 represents those who are literate and those who have studied up to a maximum of class 9, EDU2 encompasses those who have studied above class 9 and completed secondary education but not graduation and EDU3 represents graduates or those who have acquired a higher level of education including technical and non-technical, professional and vocational courses.
- 13.
(HHSZ).
- 14.
(SCST and OBC).
- 15.
(MIGi = 1,2) representing migrants with a duration of stay up to 10 years and more than 10 years respectively with non-migrants as the comparison group.
- 16.
(GEND with 0 for males and 1 for females).
- 17.
(POLC, 1 for having contact and 0 for its absence).
- 18.
(PROP, 1 for having property and 0 otherwise).
- 19.
Average incomes of course showed differences across activities as seen from Table 10.1.
- 20.
However, those who are just literates or studied up to class 9 earn as low as the illiterates.
- 21.
Also, there are some who did not experience any change in real income.
- 22.
It excludes health expenditure.
- 23.
In India, the headcount measure of poverty is estimated in relation to the poverty line which is expressed in terms of monthly per capita consumption expenditure. The poverty line is estimated at Rs. 636 for Jaipur, Rs. 533 for Ludhiana, Rs. 585 for Mathura and Rs. 599 for Ujjain for January 2007.
- 24.
The regression of well-being index on the duration of migration of the household head, carried out only for the migrant households excluding the non-migrants, shows that only in Ujjain, there is a statistically significant and positive relationship between the two.
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Mitra, A. (2013). Social Capital, Livelihood and Well-Being. In: Insights into Inclusive Growth, Employment and Wellbeing in India. Springer, India. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-0656-9_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-0656-9_10
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