A Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is a type of managed industrial cluster which focuses on exports and encourages the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) and technology. These "special" zones are given a range of fiscal and non-fiscal incentives, which are not available to firms located in the...

This paper analyses (age-adjusted) employment rates by gender and education. We find that malefemale gender gaps and high-low education gaps in employment vary markedly across European Union (EU) countries and regions, with larger gaps existing in Eastern and Southern Europe than in Nordic and...

After following inward oriented economic policies for nearly four decades, India opened up to international trade in the early 1990s. Since then, the trade integration of the Indian economy in general and the manufacturing sector in particular has increased phenomenally. Against this backdrop,...

One particularly significant piece of labour legislation in India is the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 (CLA,1970), which regulates labour hired by firms through the offices of a labour contractor - such labour being referred to as 'contract' labour in India. This paper...

The paper begins with a discussion of Indian labour law and the increasing use of "contract labour" in Indian formal manufacturing. We question the widespread perception that employment of contract labour provides flexibility to employers in terms of adjustment in response to demand and...

The COVID-19 pandemic has highly asymmetric effects on labour market outcomes of men and women. In this paper, we empirically investigate the dynamics and drivers of gender gaps in employment rates, wages and workhours during the pandemic. Relying on Estonian Labour Force Survey data, we...