Socio-economic Conditions & Determinants of Income: A Tale of Informal Workers of Urban Odisha, India

Informal employment and its impact on economic growth have been receiving greater attention, but less is known about their socioeconomic conditions and determinants of income in India. This column attempts to uncover the determinants of informal income and socioeconomic conditions with respect to migration status.

This study was based on primary investigation. Hence the data collection was performed on multi-stage stratified sampling method. The primary data has been collected through a structured questionnaire for the informal sector workers in Cuttack city of Odisha. The data analysis was completed by ANOVA and multiple regression analysis.

The income of migrant workers is more than the non-migrant workers due to their nature of work and pattern of payment, whereas the non-migrant workers are engaged in household services with lower payment. The important socio economic determinants such as category of land they lived, gender, various age groups of household head, migration status, availability of off-season support, type of employment, social group, religion, principal sectors, number of dependency, and members of the union are responsible for lower income of the informal workers.

For sustainable and equitable improvements in basic facilities such as housing, electricity, health, vocational education, social security and employment opportunity should be facilitated by the policy makers. In order to achieve these objectives, this study emphasized more on the mobile-education-services, MGNREGS programs and the MSMEs sector by which Sustainable Development Goals 1,2,3,4,6,8,9,12, and 17 can simultaneously be achieved.