Existence of Structural Disadvantage among socio-religious groups: Is it a reality? An Analysis of Indian Labour Market

The labour market in India has been segmented into a formal and informal sector. More than 85% of the labour force is engaged in the informal sector. Since the informal sector does not follow labour laws such as provisions of minimum wage and social security, there is enough scope for differential treatment against certain weaker sections of society. We term this differential treatment as structural disadvantage. In this paper, we find that structural disadvantage against ST/SC Hindus relative to Upper class Hindus and Upper class Hindus relative to that of Other religious minorities does exist in India. But is non-existent against Muslims given our specification. What is a cause for worry is that the dis-advantage against ST/SCs Hindus has been increasing overtime whereas against Upper Hindus has considerably fallen. Increase in better quality of middle and higher education along with more reservations for ST/SCs in education and in formal labour markets can go a long way to abate the the magnitude of structural dis-advantage.