Women as Marginal Workers in Informal Mining and Quarrying, India: A Preliminary Analysis

Citation:

Mukhopadhaya, Pundarik, and Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt. 2014. “Women as Marginal Workers in Informal Mining and Quarrying, India: A Preliminary Analysis.” Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy 19 (2): 290–309. doi:10.1080/13547860.2014.880287.

Authors: Pundarik Mukhopadhaya, Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt

Abstract:

This paper presents an analysis of 2001 Indian Census data at the state level on women workers in the mining and quarrying (M&Q) sector. In the absence of official data on informal M&Q, the paper uses the census category of ‘marginal workers’ as a rough indicator of informal employment within this industrial category. The paper has two stages of analysis: first, it presents a state-by-state description of employment of women as main and marginal workers in key minerals; it then correlates income and other social indicators to the proportion of women marginal workers in different mineral categories in order to explore the connections between income, poverty/ economic ill-being, caste and other social factors and informal M&Q. It concludes that at the state level, correlations are difficult to draw, and that there is need for further elaborate data for analysis.

Keywords: informal sector, marginal workers, India, women, mining and quarrying

Topics: Caste, Economies, Poverty, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Governance, Livelihoods, Political Participation Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2014