Determinants of Women’s Informal Work in Manipur: An Empirical Analysis

Manipur is one of the most economically backward states of North-Eastern region of India bordering with Myanmar. Women constitute about  half of the total  population and  about 40% of the workforce in the state .Unlike other parts of India, Manipuri women  face less discrimination .Women are playing multiple role in the economy and society besides their role as mother,  wife ,home maker ,and care giver in the household. But their participation in the organised sector as worker is low as majority of them are engaged in the informal or unorganised sector characterized by low productivity, insecurity and vulnerability. Keeping this in view , the present paper tries to examine the determinants of  the women’s participation of such informal work by using National Sample  Survey Organisation’s Unit level data on employment and unemployment for two  different rounds i.e., 61^st and 66^th round  respectively. The study employed the Logistic Regression model for the analysis. Eight Independent variables have been selected viz. Age, education, marital status, location, household type, household headship, social group, religion respectively. The overall result indicate that ,among the explanatory variables ,age and education have significant contribution in predicting the  dependent variable that is women’s  entry into informal work.