Arbeitspapier

Minimum Wages and Changing Wage Inequality in India

Using nationally representative data on employment and earnings, this paper documents a fall in wage inequality in India over the last two decades. It then examines the role played by increasing minimum wages for the lowest skilled workers in India in contributing to the observed decline. Exploiting regional variation in changes in minimum wages over time in the country, we find that an increase in minimum wages by one percent led to an increase in wages for workers in the lowest quintile by 0.17%. This effect is smaller at upper wage quintiles and insignicant for the highest wage quintile. Counterfactual wage estimations show that the increase in minimum wages explains 26% of the decline in wage inequality in India during 1999-2018. These findings underscore the important role played by rising minimum wages in reducing wage disparities in India.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 16600

Classification
Wirtschaft
Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs: Public Policy
Subject
minimum wages
wage inequality
India

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Khurana, Saloni
Mahajan, Kanika
Sen, Kunal
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
(where)
Bonn
(when)
2023

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET

Data provider

This object is provided by:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.

Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Khurana, Saloni
  • Mahajan, Kanika
  • Sen, Kunal
  • Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Time of origin

  • 2023

Other Objects (12)