104 JAAP BROEKEMA
percent for the MCH-workers A large majority of the migrants (including the second
generation) is from Andhra Pradesh, predominantly from one of the neighbouring
districts of Hyderabad.
A significant difference exists between the two categories of labourers in terms of
overall household income^6. This difference can be attributed to the wide gap between
the salary of the MCH-workers and the private contract labourers (more on this will
follow). In 38 percent of the households of the former group, the household is exclu-
sively dependent on the salary earned by the MCH labourer. In the households of the
private labourers this dependence is much lower (13 percent) and more household
members have an income. Usually the involvement of more household members in
income generating activities can be regarded as an indicator of poverty.
Only in about 20 percent of the households of the private labourers the salary of the
labourers constitutes more than 50 percent of the family income. For the MCH
labourers this figure is much higher: in 94 percent of the cases their incomes constitute
more than 50 percent of the total family income.
In Hyderabad the average age-difference between the two groups is 11 years This
seems to support the general belief that private contractors prefer to recruit young
labourers because they are most productive (Cointreau-Levine, 1994). However, this
explanation is not entirely satisfactory. One has to remember the ban on the recruit-
ment of new MCH labourers since 1990. If one looks at the age at the time of first
employment the difference is three years, to the advantage of the MCH labourers (an
average recruitment age of 28.1 years versus 30.9 in the private sector). Therefore, in
Hyderabad contractors do not seem to attach great value to the productive gain of
recruiting younger labourers However, this might be related to the particular system
of private sector participation in place. Considering the rigid contract specifications
there is no incentive for contractors to strive for higher labour productivity.
Job history
As explained earlier, the scale of privatisation has increased considerably since 1998.
This development is reflected in the job history of the private labourers A majority
(almost 70 percent) of the labourers started their job as private kamatee/kamatan when
the unit system was introduced in September 1998. Only about 30 percent of the
labourers had worked as a kamatan/kamatee before that date.
Although the short working period of most private labourers does not allow drawing
firm conclusions on mobility patterns, there is one aspect that deserves to be
- Here the household income is defined as the sum of the incomes of all the household members regard-
less of the actual distribution of the income among the members