The rise and persistence of informality in the Indian labor force has intensified inequality among the urban poor. Broadly, the informal economy refers to all income generating activities beyond official state regulation. Against the backdrop of an economy where 92% of the labor force is in the informal sector, the objective of this project is to explain how inequality engendered by informal labor conditions manifests in urban India. I aim to do this through ethnographic case studies of specific sectors in the informal economy. Gender forms a central focus of the project since the informal labor workforce largely comprises women engaged in unpaid and emotional labor in the household. 

Biography:

 Priyanjali Mitra is a second year Ph.D. student in Sociology at the University of Chicago. She holds an MSc from the University of Oxford and a BA (Hons.) from the University of Delhi in sociology. Her research interests lie at the intersection of gender, urban and economic sociology with a focus on issues of labour in cities in the Global South. Previously she has worked in the development sector in a range of organizations- consultancies, multi laterals and grassroots advocacy groups in South and South East Asia.