The landscape of self-employment in India: trends, constraints, and policy prescriptions
- The Indian Journal of Labour Economics
- 68(1), Jan-Mar, 2025: p. 23-44
This paper assesses the structure and quality of self-employment in India, over several decades. India, historically, has had a much larger share of workers who are self-employed and a smaller proportion of wage and salaried workers. This structure of labour force participation has not shifted much in decades. In recent years, the proportion of self-employed has risen relative to the pre-pandemic era, and much more so for women. At the same time, significant underemployment accompanies low earnings of the self-employed. The paper highlights three key constraints for improving the quality of or transitioning out of self-employment—vocational skilling, access to formal credit and legal support for entrepreneurship. It concludes by discussing the implications of technological change and digitisation for self-employment and the need for reforming the legal framework of self-employment in India. - Reproduced