Migration, Informality and the Growing Precarity of Work

Abstract

We view the impact of three decades of rapid growth and structural change in India on the lives of the working poor in terms of the growing precarity of work. The COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdown in 2020 and the ensuing crisis exposed the vulnerability of informal workers, particularly circular migrants, and resulted in the largest ever urban exodus of migrants. The crisis was a result of changes that had systematically increased the magnitude and scope of informal employment in the industrial and service sectors, and created a cheap, flexible and pliable workforce. Circular migrants, a product of uneven regional development, form an ever-growing segment of this flexible, informal workforce. Largely excluded from urban citizenship and civic rights, they lead a precarious existence, oscillating between town and country, and carrying out tasks that preserve gender and social hierarchies.