Scheduled Castes in the Indian Labour Market: Employment Discrimination and Its Impact on Poverty

This study offers insight into the discriminatory workings of the labour market and its unequal outcomes with respect to employment, wages, and occupations, and its impact on the poverty of Scheduled Caste wage workers in India. It develops an understanding of the persistence of caste inequality in employment, wages, and occupations between the Scheduled Caste and the higher castes in the private and public sectors in India. It also identifies the causes of high unemployment and low wages of the Scheduled Caste workers, and their segregation in low-paid occupations. The authors provide convincing empirical evidence ofdiscrimination in wages and its impact on reduced wage incomes and increase in the poverty of the Scheduled Caste wage workers. Estimation of discrimination in employment, unemployment, and occupation, and its impact on income and poverty of the Scheduled Caste is net addition to the existing knowledge on the subject.