Fall 2014 CASI Visiting Scholar
About the Speaker:
S. Chandrasekhar is an Associate Professor at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai, an advanced research institute fully funded by Reserve Bank of India. His current work focuses on Migration and Urbanization, Rural-Urban Linkages, and Labour Market Outcomes in India. Among Chandrasekhar's ongoing research projects are: "The Commuting Worker: An Overlooked Aspect of Rural-Urban Interaction," "Strengthen and Harmonize Research and Action on Migration in the Indian Context (SHRAMIC)," and "Tackling Agriculture -Nutrition Disconnect in India (TANDI)."
About the Lecture:
Unlike migration, scant attention has been paid to the phenomenon of commuting by workers in developing countries. This lecture fills this gap by using a nationally representative data set from India to analyze factors that affect the decision of workers to commute across rural and urban areas daily. The results suggest that regions with large peripheral urban areas or concentrations of secondary sector jobs are more likely to have commuting workers. Regional rural and urban unemployment rates and rural–urban wage differentials are important push and pull factors in the decision to commute.