#YSOSS 2 Seminar 1: Rural Labour Market Transformation in India
The first session of the FAS Young Scholars’ Online Seminar Series 2023-24 featuring Dr Shiba Shankar Pattayat, Assistant Professor of Economics, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Yeshwanthpur Campus, was held on Thursday, May 25, 2023.
Shiba Shankar spoke about his work, “Rural Labour Market Transformation in India: Impacts on the Agriculture Sector.
Using official data sources, Shiba Shankar examined the trends and patterns of labour market diversification from farming to the non-farm sector. He argued that the growth of non-farm sector employment not only plays an important role in sustaining the structural transformation process, but is also necessary to reduce the extent and depth of poverty in rural India.
Through his study, Shiba Shankar showed that rural workers of all castes are taking up non-farm employment even though the quality of employment is still very poor. Although the construction and service sectors have been playing an important role in driving non-farm sector employment growth, rural industrialisation is necessary to sustain the structural transformation process in rural India.
He also tried to identify various individual factors such as education, training, wage rates, and marital status , and household-level factors such as standard of living, level of education and occupation of the family head, and social group that are responsible for the changing labour market situation.
The session was Chaired by Barbara Harriss-White, Emeritus Professor of Development Studies, University of Oxford. Niyati Singaraju, Postdoctoral Fellow – Gender Research, Sustainable Impact Platform, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), acted as the discussant.
A Q&A session, moderated by the Chair, followed the presentation.
If you haven’t attended this seminar and want to attend future seminars of the FAS Young Scholars’ Online Seminar Series, kindly register using this google form. Once registered, we will keep you updated about all the future seminars of the series.
For more details, contact us at events[at]fas[dot]org[dot]in.