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Vulnerable Sites: Bottom-of-the Pyramid Blue-Collar Workers, Occupational Gendering and Earnings Disparity

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Abstract

India is the world’s largest blue-collar recruiting market, yet this economy stays invisible and under-explored. This research examined the earnings opportunity of the bottom-of-the pyramid blue-collar worker, namely those who have not even cleared class X. The study analysed job postings across 13 Indian cities within 17 job profiles, on a popular blue-collar job portal and found significant disparity in earnings based on gender, job profile, and job location. Two-step clustering model revealed occupational gendering such that women will be kept out of certain jobs, and there was significant evidence of a masculinised skill perception within a significant proportion of the job postings. The image of the blue-collar worker is dominantly that of a male worker. The study found that high paying job postings such as delivery person and cook were associated significantly with a male requirement, while low-paying jobs ranging from housekeeping (including house maids) to receptionist formed the bulk of demand for women workers. Occupational segregation and cultural discrimination may be creating a structural bias against blue-collar women locking them in a constrained life position. However, men’s vulnerability was also observed in the data as the high paying delivery profile along with office boy/peon had lowest salary much lower than minimum wage. Online job-portals can offer an alternative research site to understand the challenges and precarious status of blue-collar workers, thereby addressing the data paucity issue. Excavating insights from such natural experiments can form a basis for developing appropriate educational, training and bargaining solutions for them.

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  1. S.P. Jain School of Global Management, Mumbai, India

    Firdaus Khan

  2. TISS, Hyderabad Off-Campus, Hyderabad, India

    Srinivas Surisetti

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Appendix

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See Figs. 8, 9 and Tables 6, 7.

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Pairwise comparison of cities

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Fig. 9
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Pairwise comparison of job profiles

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Table 6 Significant profiles in pairwise comparisons of cities
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Table 7 Pairwise comparisons of job role
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Khan, F., Surisetti, S. Vulnerable Sites: Bottom-of-the Pyramid Blue-Collar Workers, Occupational Gendering and Earnings Disparity. Ind. J. Labour Econ. 66, 855–883 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41027-023-00454-5

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