THE LEGAL AND SOCIAL MARGINS THE HARSH REALITIES OF INFORMAL LABOUR IN INDIA

Abstract

Informal work is a characteristic of the Indian economy, covering more than 90% of India's workforce and entering industry such as agriculture and construction, street vendors and home work. It is evidence of the determination and exposure of millions of workers whose working lives are beyond the cover of protection given by formal labour law. Informal employment is distinguished by low pay, absence of social security, insecure employment, and poor working conditions that subject the workers to exploitation. This chapter analyzes the structural determinants of informality such as socio-economic inequality, poor legal frameworks, and poor enforcement frameworks. It shows how informality cuts across caste, gender, and migration and how it operates to increase vulnerabilities among marginal groups. The chapter also explores emerging policy reactions and legal actions to close such gaps and evaluates their potential and constraints. In drawing inspiration from the very tangible lives of informal workers and structural obstacles making them invisible, the book places front and center the imperative to construct labour reforms that attain legal protection and socio-economic belonging.
Lastly, it argues that informalization is not so much a matter of labour justice but, more seriously, a matter of ensuring balanced economic growth. The chapter emphasizes the shift in imagination from perceiving the informal workforce as an ad hoc adjustment to perceiving it as being part of India's entire labour matrix and hence requiring rights-based, participatory, and place-sensitive interventions.

DOI - https://doi.org/10.65525/SVUP.9788199328600.2026.61-78