Understanding risk behavior of sanitation workers

Student name: Ms Ambica Chopra
Guide: Dr Soumendu Sarkar
Year of completion: 2018
Host Organisation: TERI School of Advanced Studies

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Abstract: “In India over 1.2 million workers are involved in sewage cleaning services. The sewage job in India is associated with high risk due hazardous work environment along with low pay and no/less benefits. These workers are responsible for entering the sewer line full of human and animal waste, bare-bodied without any safety gears and tools. The state of affairs of sewerage workers have remain unchanged for over a decade now. (Pradeep Narayanan, 2014) After more than ten sanitation workers death were reported in the city the Delhi government announced a blanket ban on manual scavenging. (Aranha, 2017)

The research aims to address two significant questions. First, most of the individuals are risk averse when given an option between various economic choices. It implies that if individuals are risk-averse, they should not choose to do sanitation work, or particular sanitation activities, unless insured (or highly remunerated). But we still see huge workforce involved in this job; what are the factors motivating these workers to stick to such kinds of jobs. Secondly, there is a ban on manual sewage cleaning, which is the most hazardous, and also the most remunerative among all sanitation activities. Consequently, post-ban sanitation workers in manual sewage cleaning must witness a fall in their income or a reduction in their welfare in terms of increased labour-time in other activities to substitute their income. Has such a pattern been observed in the labor market?

For the purpose of the study sanitation workers employed under different government agencies, private contractors, and RWA’s in Delhi were selected. Using purposive sampling technique a sample of 80 sanitation workers was collected. The data was collected on various aspects such as household characteristics, current job status, risk perception, health status, risk attitude, job characteristics, and access to benefits.

A qualitative research analysis was done to empirically test the wage compensation and risk theory in case of sanitation sector.

Lastly a comparative analysis of Indian sanitation workers were done with that of US and China.”