Determinants of Wages and Returns to Education in Rural India

This study focuses on estimating determinants of wages across primary, secondary and tertiary sectors in rural India by the type of work contract involved. Casual labourers, with short term work contracts and nearly absent benefits and wage employees, with long term work contracts, higher wages and benefits represent dual sections of the labour market. Here we demonstrate that human capital and other factors that has been proven to explain variation in wages in other labour markets, explain little about wages in casual employment sector. Further, pattern of returns to education for casual labourers were found to decrease with increasing educational levels and was negative for higher education. Such a trend was no t noticed among wage employees, where pattern that was similar with other studies focusing on the whole labour market.returns to education, wages, particular labour markets, Labor and Human Capital, J3, J4,

Essays on child labour, its relation with competitiveness of labour intensive exports, its determinants and education in India

Diese Dissertation ist eine Sammlung von Artikeln, die sich auf Kinderarbeit beziehen. In mehreren Ländern wurde eine Analyse durchgeführt, welche die Leistungsfähigkeit von arbeitsintensiven Exportgeschäften beurteilte. Das Ergebnis enthüllte, dass Kinderarbeit arbeitsintensive Exporttätigkeiten negativ beeinflusste gemessen am Bruttosozialprodukt. Die Faktoren zur Kinderarbeit wurden genauer untersucht, indem Datenmaterial von nationalen Stichprobenerhebungen Indiens benützt wurden. Man fand heraus, dass familiäre Eigenschaften, insbesondere der Bildungsgrad, ein bedeutsames Verhältnis zu den täglichen Tätigkeiten eines Kindes aufweist. Mit der gleichen Datengrundlage wurden die finanziellen Auswirkungen von Ausbildung im „informellen und formellen“ Arbeitsmarkt für die Städte und die ländlichen Regionen Indiens untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass die finanziellen Auswirkungen im „informellen Arbeitsmarkt“ sowie in ländlichen Regionen und im primären Wirtschaftssektor geringer ausfielen. Eine Kostennutzenanalyse wurde durchgeführt, um den tatsächlichen Nutzen von Ausbildungskosten für alle Kinder ohne jegliche Schulausbildung zu untersuchen. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass die Durchführung solcher Projekte für die indische Regierung sogar von großem Nutzen wäre.This Dissertation is a collection of articles all related to child labour. A multi country analysis estimating performance of labour intensive exports was performed and the results revealed that child labour negatively influenced the labour intensive exports share to GDP. Using National Sample Survey data from India, determinants of child labour were studied. It was found that family characteristics, especially literacy levels had a significant relationship with the daily activity status of the child. With the same data set, returns to education in the informal and formal labour markets were studied for rural and urban India. Results showed that returns were lower in the informal market, rural regions and in the primary sector. A Cost Benefit Analysis was performed to examine the net benefits of educating all out of school children and the results showed that such a project would be within the reach of Indian Government

Determinants of Wages and Returns to Education in Rural India

This study focuses on estimating determinants of wages across primary, secondary and tertiary sectors in rural India by the type of work contract involved. Casual labourers, with short term work contracts and nearly absent benefits and wage employees, with long term work contracts, higher wages and benefits represent dual sections of the labour market. Here we demonstrate that human capital and other factors that has been proven to explain variation in wages in other labour markets, explain little about wages in casual employment sector. Further, pattern of returns to education for casual labourers were found to decrease with increasing educational levels and was negative for higher education. Such a trend was no t noticed among wage employees, where pattern that was similar with other studies focusing on the whole labour market