Effects of Globalisation on Employment and Poverty in Dualistic Economies: The Case of India

Although it is too early to evaluate the long-run socio-economic effects of economic
liberalisation and privatisation, along with the overall globalisation process, on a dualistic
economy like India's, the paper will first examine the often-raised concern that these economic
changes have, in general, led to the erosion of living standards of the poor; increase in regional
disparities in terms of industrial benefits; deterioration or, at least, a sluggishness in
employment generation; greater casualisation; feminisation and deskilling of the work-force;
and growing uncertainty and hidden hardships associated with recent patterns of economic
changes; etc. It then intends to look into the kind of ripple effect all these will cause in the
unorganised segment of the Indian economy which includes major part of the agricultural
sector, rural non-agricultural and urban informal sector activities.