Notes from the Field | Johnson Abhishek Minz, Identifying the ‘Precariat’ in India: Exploring Time-Use by the Labour Force
The category of the precariat has been in much vogue since its introduction by Guy Standing in his seminal work in the year 2011. In recent times while there is a general acceptance towards a global rise in workers engaged in precarious employment, this segment having class characteristics remains contested. In the context of India, a major criticism leveled against this category is its synonymity with the informal workers thereby rendering the category banal.
In the year 2019, the government of India undertook a first-ever time-use survey (TUS) in India. The survey sheds light on the usage of time by individuals on various activities in their life. The TUS was canvassed from January to December 2019 by the National Statistical Office (NSO). The data at the unit level presents itself in five different levels constituting individual and household characteristics. In all, it covers 138,799 households comprising a total of 518,744 members aged six years and above. The interviews note the time use activity of each household member who is above six years of age. Time duration of twenty-four hours in a consecutive 4:00 am to 4:00 am slot was assessed for the purpose. The reported days were divided into normal and other days to account for deviations from the routine time use. The reporting on time use was preferably done by self, other household members, or persons closely associated with the particular household. Due to constraints in information gathering, data on all individuals covered was not gathered, making the effective data on individual persons as 447,250 in the survey.
Of particular importance is data on the amount of time spent on paid and unpaid activities by people. Apart from its obvious usefulness in analyzing work done by women, which is mainly absent from economic analysis, the distribution between paid and unpaid activities in people's lives also defines their location in the work status. By and large, where persons engaged in formal economy with formal employment relations have a clearly defined eight-hour work schedule, persons involved in informal work have no such boundaries. This manifests itself in a long and arduous work-life with little or no pay for the extra hours.
Time use as a means of gradation
Guy Standing, in his seminal piece on work and employment in the 21st century, points to a new global class-in-the-making which he brands as the ‘precariat’. He identifies them as a class that suffers from different forms of labor-related security. Amid other aspects, the precariat also has distinctive relations of production, in the sense that they have a high ratio of work-for-labor to labor. Work-for-labor is defined as the unremunerated but exploited activity that exists on or off workplaces. The importance of this category can be gauged from the fact that this is a burgeoning populace that is fueling the rise of populism across the globe (Standing 2016). Further, the interests of this new class are at crossroads with the old working class. Standing reminds policymakers to pay more attention to their development.
In the context of India, work with a non-standard employment relationship and high levels of insecurity and uncertainty are branded as precarious work. Such work is found to be the defining characteristic of the informal sector in India. Thereby, going by this definition informal workers and the precariat have a lot in common. We look at precarity in terms of time use, particularly in terms of time dedicated for labor and work-for-labor activities. The workers who are engaged in jobs that provide little to no security are often required to spend more time in work to earn a living. The need for extra work that arises eats on time left for other activities. In the absence of legislation that limits time spent on work, exploitation occurs with high levels of work-for-labor.
Time-use by the labour force in India
The National Statistical Office broadly defines the employed as engaged in three different activity statuses- self-employed, regular salaried/wage employee and casual labor. The survey mentions six different employment categories: employers, regular salaried/wage employees, own account workers, helpers, casual labor in public works, and casual labor in other works. These different employment contexts also provide gradations in terms of various work-related security. A look at the distribution of employed in the survey is given in table 1. In the context of India, the category of own account workers within self-employed remains the mainstay of the economy. The own account workers usually do not hire any labor to run their enterprise. The self-employed is sometimes assisted by helpers who are persons within the family assisting in work without any expectations regarding pay. Often this category remains hazy and is seen in the light of non-market, unpaid work. The category of employers are persons who usually hire laborers to run their enterprise. Regular salaried/wage employee is another significant section in the economy that comprises persons who are remunerated regularly. While the category of casual labor is seen as engaged in work contracts usually of a daily nature.
Table 1: Distribution of Usual principal activity status in TUS, 2019. Source: Compiled from Time-Use survey (TUS).
Work that is paid or for-profit is seen from these various categories. Except for the category of employers under self-employed, each of the activity status of workers has proclivity towards precarity- in terms of nature of employment, length of working hours, social security provisions etc. The burgeoning category of ‘contract laborers’ or agency workers in the economy is embedded in wage employee and casual labor. However, the two categories vary in degree to the extent of protection accorded by the legislation.
Figure 1: Time spent on economic activities by different usual principal activity status. Source: Compiled from Time-Use survey (TUS)
In a typical day, for persons above six years of age and accounting for only the major activities of the day, figure 1 showcases the average hours spent on economic activities – i.e. on employment and related activities and production of goods for own final use in a day by persons belonging to different usual principal activity status. It is seen that the regular salaried/wage employee spends close to nine hours per day on employment and related activities, casual labour spends around eight hours in a day while the self-employed category spends lesser hours per day. This is synonymous with regulations for regular salaried and casual labor, while self-employed have autonomy over their time use. It is important to point here that the time utilized to produce goods for own final use should be seen as residual time invested in such activities when time invested in employment and related activities is exhausted. The helper category accounts for the most extensive time spent on the residual activity, owing to the unpaid, ad-hoc nature of employment activities.
In the context of India, identifying precariat as the persons engaged in precarious work with little or no security is characteristic of all workers except the regular salaried. Additionally, barring the regular salaried the other categories either do not have any employment relationship or have a non-standard employment relationship. Therefore, we classify the usual principal status into two categories, regular salaried/wage employee and the precariat. We group self-employed and casual labor in the category of the precariat. We also present data with a bifurcation on the variable gender presuming differences between males and females. We find differences between males and females in terms of time invested in economic activity. Males who belong to the regular salaried category spend the most significant amount of time on economic activity. Males belonging to the precariat category and females in the regular salaried class spend approximately eight hours in employment and related activities. It may also be inferred that the precariat spend more time producing goods for own final use than the regular salaried.
Figure 2: Gender segregation of time spent on economic activities by regular salaried and precariat.
For our analysis, we may now divide the non-economic activity into time spent on unpaid work, learning and education, and socializing in the community and self-care. One of the identifiers of Standing’s precariat is the large amount of time on unpaid work vis-à-vis labor. With unpaid work also comes the adage of it being exploited. We then gauge the time spent by these two categories on unpaid work. Unpaid work is seen in three different constituents: domestic services, caregiving services, and volunteer or trainee work. We find that across both regular salaried/wage employee and the so-called precariat, males spend more or less same amount of time on unpaid work i.e. a little over four hours. However, women at least spend 6.6 hours in a day on unpaid work. The time spent by women engaged in the precariat category spend more than eight hours in a day on unpaid work. This points to the division of labor in terms of paid and unpaid work. Further, the time spent on unpaid work for women increases even more, when they belong to the precariat category. The data lends support to the view of males being a privileged lot.
Figure 3: Gender segregation of time spent on unpaid work by regular salaried and precariat. Source: Compiled from Time-Use survey (TUS).
The above micro-data showcases that there is little evidence to believe that the precariat as a category spends substantially more time on unpaid work than the regular salaried. However, we find that females, due to the patriarchal perception of socio-cultural background, end up in stark similarity with Standing’s definition of the precariat. Although, Standing mentions about the precariat in terms of a budding class irrespective of gender segregations, initial impression suggests corroboration of the qualities of precariat with female labor force. Women spend large hours on non-economic, unpaid work compared to the time spent on economic activities. The situation turns acute when these women belong to the precariat category. This begs the need to integrate the analysis of precariat or persons engaged in doing precarious work with the lens of gender. The burden of patriarchy tends to weigh heavy for women in India and pushes them to participate less in economic and related activities.
Johnson Abhishek Minz is assistant professor in the Humanities and Liberal Arts area at the Indian Institute of Management Bodh Gaya. He can be reached at: johnson.m@iimbg.ac.in.
To cite this essay, please use the suggested entry below:
Johnson Abhishek Minz, “Identifying the ‘Precariat’ in India: Exploring Time-Use by the Labour Force,” criticalasianstudies.org Commentary Board, December 7, 2023; https://doi.org/10.52698/URSN3805.