South Asia - a labour surplus region

Pravin SINHA

WORKER INTEREST: Short term migrants are those to move to another country for employment and intend to return the country of their docile. In performance of their work they face exploitation at the hands of employers as also recruiting agents.

The national laws protecting the interests of workers normally remain untouched in so far migrant workers are concerned. Worst is the case with the illegal migrant. The labour surplus economies of south Asia have of recent awakened to the concerns of these workers, as bilateral agreement are being entered.

The SAARC Social Charter is an important milestone in the area of regional cooperation. The well written document identifies seven social areas of concerns but fails to include labour as one of them.

Under the condition whether concerns of migrant worker could be included in a multilateral agreement, and if so whether it will help to check the human and labour right violations that the migrant workers the faced with?

The South Asian Region consists of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. These countries are members of the United Nations, Non-aligned movement, South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation [SAARC] and the Group of 77 Developing Countries.

South Asia accounts for 3.3 per cent of the world’s landmass and one fifth of the world population. The size of countries varies from a very large (India) to very small (Bhutan and Maldives).

Nearly half of the world’s poor live in this region. The regional has over one and half billion populations with gross domestic product (GDP) merely at about US $350 billion as such poverty is wide spread.

All the countries, since their inception, have accorded pivotal importance to development work still poverty, unemployment, and lopsided development, wide spread illiteracy continues to be their basic problems.

While assessing the trends in development in South Asia, Mahabubul Haq concluded that South Asia is fast emerging as the poorest, the most illiterate, the most malnourished, and the least gender sensitive in the world.

According to UNOP, the rural poverty ratios around 1990 were: Bangladesh 51%, India 49% Nepal 43%, Pakistan 31% and Sri Lanka 36% of the country’s population. Similarly, the urban poverty ratios for the same period were: Bangladesh 56%, India 38%, Nepal 19%, Pakistan 20% and Sri Lanka 15%.

The figures accordingly indicate that in South Asia the level of poverty is higher in rural than in urban areas.

On health, despite significant increase in the life expectancy, about 850 million people [85%] lack access to even basic sanitation. 600 million people [60%] suffer from malnutrition; about 420 million [42%] are illiterate; and about 48 million children are out of primary school.

Although for the majority income from work is’ the only source of livelihood yet labour issues have receive negligible attention of the concerned authorities. The worker’s weak social status and its unorganized nature are primary reasons for the same.

Consequently, workers’ organizations are either ignored or at worse are considered as disturbing factor. The employers as also the governments have been treating unions less than equal partners in progress, in particular during the post liberalisation period.

South Asia consists essentially of agrarian economies as agriculture sector apart from being the largest employer of the workforce is also the single largest contributor to the nation’s GDP.

Agriculture, however, is practised on traditional basis using generations old tools with heavy component of labour. Manmade irrigation facilities are negligible. Consequently, economic performance in the region is greatly influenced by weather conditions.

Agriculture production in Bangladesh, parts of India & Sri Lanka continues to be affected by server drought and in Nepal by poor monsoon. Flood too is a common occurrence in the region.

A look at the socio-economic indicators of the level of development achieved by countries in South Asia indicate that all the countries fall with in the identical socio-economic conditions, e.g. rapidly increasing population with majority living in rural areas and dependent primarily on agriculture sector.

It is a labour surplus region as job opportunities are much fewer in number as compared to size of work force. The tables prove not only limited involvement of women workers but also the concentration of workforce in the agriculture sector which is in any case subsistent in nature.

The distinctive features of South Asian labour market include:

[i} dominant informal sector- Countries in South Asia, like many of the low-income countries, have dualism in labour market (divided in to formal / organized and informal /unorganized sectors). The informal sector accounts for over 90 per cent of the total workforce.

[ii] Unemployment and other element of social wages are virtually absent. [iii.] The problem of ‘working poor’: The general level of unemployment, as various data indicate, is low because the poor are too poor to be un-employed.

The unemployment rate in India is only 5% but the level of poverty is more than 33 percent. Thus though most of the people are registered as employed but large proportions of them earn extremely low-income. Consequently, there are high incidences of poverty. [iv.] Open Unemployment rates tend to be high among the educated population.

[v] Insecurity of income is a characteristic feature of many types of employment, for example casual labour.

[vi] The self-employed and part- time employment categories form major segment of the total employed work force.

[vi] Access to employment and income from employment tends to depend on social background of labour market participant, particularly in the informal sector.

[vii) Even where educational and skill level are similar, gender, kinship, cast, tribe, etc. remain important determinants of access to employment and level of remuneration.

[viii] Prevalence of socially unacceptable forms of employment e.g. bonded labour and child labour.

[ix] Higher gender bias in education and other human development indicators leading to its adverse implication in the labour market.

[x] Migration: There is large- scale migration [rural -rural as also rural - urban] as also international emigration of labour both within the region as also outside.

(The writer is Senior Project Officer, FES, Delhi.)