This volume explores one of the most complex labour landscapes of India - the urban daily labour market. These markets form an important sector of the urban informal labour market and contribute significantly to the Indian economy. This book presents an empirical, comparative picture of daily labour markets, in Gujarat, Western India.
These markets consist mostly of intra-state and interstate migrant workers who suffer from layered multiple marginalities based on markers of informality, migrant status, caste, ethnicity, gender and poor agency and often live in the peripheries of the cities without any rights and entitlements to their spaces and services. This study, based on an extensive survey of three cities in Gujarat, contains descriptions and analyses of the places of migration and their causes as well as the working and living conditions of the workers along with their spending patterns on food, health, education and leisure. It mirrors the work, life and issues of these workers on the regional level while contributing to a better understanding for future policy interventions.
An in-depth study, the book will be of interest to students and researchers of labour economics, labour studies, urban planning, social work, sociology, anthropology, and demography. It will also be useful to NGOs/trade unions working with migrant workers, civil servants in Labour department and other related departments, city planners and policy makers.
About the Author: Kanchan Bharati is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Culture and Development, Vadodara, Gujarat. She holds a doctorate in Sociology. She has authored and co-authored papers on ageing and other socially relevant issues in important journals and edited books. She co-authored Revisiting Suicide: From Socio-Psychological Lens (2021) with Lancy Lobo and Jayesh Shah and co-edited Marriage and Divorce in India: Shifting Concepts and Changing Practices (2019) with Lancy Lobo.
Lancy Lobo is Professor Emeritus at the Indian Social Institute, Delhi. He has previously served as Director of the Centre for Social Studies, Surat and later as founder Director of the Centre for Culture and Development in Vadodara (Gujarat) for 20 years. He and his team have focussed a large number of their studies and publications mainly on Gujarat over the past 35 years.
Dhananjay Kumar is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, Kalahandi University, Odisha. He holds a post-graduation degree in Anthropology from the University of Delhi and a doctorate in Social Anthropology from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, NIT Rourkela, Odisha. He has co-edited Legacy of Ambedkar (2019) and co-authored Tribes of Western India (Routledge, 2022) with Lancy Lobo.
