Rethinking economic change in India: labour and livelihood

The primary questions being addressed by economic historian Roy in this general history of labor-intensive occupations in South Asia circa 1870-1970--focusing on rural labor, artisans, and women workers--are the factors that account for poverty of manual workers and conditions that enable attempts to escape from poverty. His approach, rather than focus on "overly political" issues such as colonialism and repression, explains the issues with reference to the balance between natural resources and labor and diminishing returns to labor. However, he argues, the marketization of labor encourages attempts to "break out of poverty and raise returns to labor by reallocating work between places, occupations and places.