measures:employment (LFP rate per land ownership through Gini)
findings:work programme generally increases LFP; but internal heterogeneity, difference in job provision not due to public job demand changes, caste, religion; previous capital inequality (land ownership) strongly affects programme efficacy
channels:landlords oppose implementation due to general wage increases following, lobby against workfare introduction; decreased bargaining power of labour in more inequal districts
A study on the effects of previous inequalities on the outcomes of a work programme in India intended to provide job opportunity equality for already disadvantages population.
It specifically looks at the NREGA programme in India, and takes the land-ownership inequality measured through the Gini coefficient as its preceding inequality.[^nrega]
The study finds that there is significantly negative relationship between the Gini coefficient and the provision of jobs through the work programme.
In other words, the workfare policy implemented at least in part to reduce a district's inequality seems to be less effective if there is a larger prior capital inequality.
The authors see the primary channel to be the landlords' opposition to broad workfare programme introduction since they are often followed by overall wage increases in the districts.
They suggest that in more inequally distributed channels the landlords can use a more unequal power structure to lobby and effect political power decreasing the effectiveness of the programmes,
in addition to often reduced collective bargaining power on the side of labour in these districts.
The results show the same trends for measurement of land inequality using the share of land owned by the top 10 per cent largest holdings instead.
[^nrega]:The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA) is a workfare programme implemented in India, the largest of its kind, which seeks to provide 100 days of employment for each household per year. It was rolled out from 2005 over several phases until it reached all districts in India in 2008.
