Growth, structural change and wages in India: recent trends

This paper attempts to analyse the trend in growth rate of wages in the last two decades. The broad trend in wages and the wage structure are examined in the context of changing structure of employment and output in the economy over time using different data sources. The rapid acceleration during 2008–2013 and subsequent collapse of wages has raised questions on the earlier consensus on drivers of change in agricultural wages. The emergence of non-farm sector and the declining importance of agriculture is examined along with the new patterns of rural-urban interlinkages, public expenditure led employment creation such as MGNREGA and wage-inflation spiral. © 2018, Indian Society of Labour Economics.