How Do Trade, Foreign Investment and Technology Affect Employment Patterns in Organized Indian Manufacturing?

Abstract

The present study investigates into the impact of trade, foreign investment, and technology on three different employment patterns in India’s organized manufacturing sector. These employment patterns cover three disadvantage categories of workers viz., women vis-a-vis men workers, contract vis-a-vis regular workers and unskilled vis-a-vis skilled workers. A conceptual and empirical framework has been developed linking these employment patterns to trade, foreign investment, and technology, and tested for a sample of Indian industries. The research suggests that trade has been employment promoting for women and unskilled workers while it has remain neutral between contract and regular workers. The impact of foreign investment has been observed to be negative for contract and unskilled workers. The overall impact of technology encompassing in-house R&D, foreign technology imports, and capital-intensity has been mostly negative for women and unskilled workers but positive for contract workers.