Deadline: 20 July 2019
The Rajasthan Shram Sarathi Association and the Household Finance Research Initiative at Dvara Research are jointly offering a Fellowship for conducting research and the themes is household finance of migrant households in India.
The Fellowship Program invites institutional and independent academicians and scholars to submit research proposals that thematically cuts across various dimensions of labour migrant households, financial inclusion and household finance.
It aims to generate high-quality evidence-based research, fund the project and build a robust body of work that will educate, encourage and facilitate policy makers and practitioners to address the gaps in existing financial products and services targeted towards low-income migrant households.
Objective
The objective of this Fellowship is to create and disseminate knowledge, best practices and impact about financial inclusion of labour migrant households. The repository of work built through this Fellowship will also assist in building a policy agenda that could create a financially inclusive ecosystem for labour migrant households in India.
Research Themes
- Labour migration by low-income households has been traditionally viewed as an income diversification strategy. However, increasingly, labour migration is emerging as the principal means of livelihoods in highly impoverished communities, characterized by low incomes and informal, risky jobs. Existing financial service models fail to address the needs of such footloose households whose livelihoods depends on the informal labour economy both at source and destination.
- To examine the nature of financial distress and consequent coping mechanisms adopted by low-income labour migrant households, proposals under this theme can address questions such as
- Explore the links between informality of labour markets and financial well-being of lowincome labour migrant households.
- Examine the financial decisions and behavior of low-income labour migrant households at origin that use remittances as the primary source of household income.
- Capture and analyze the portfolio composition and asset allocation patterns of lowincome migrant households with different demographic characteristics, income and wealth levels
- Financial interventions have direct and indirect impact on households and the rationale extends to labour-migrant households as well. The types of intervention range from improving outcomes under various aspects of low-income households by providing access to financial products and services. Some of the products are credit for building physical assets, insurance for protecting human capital, savings in financial assets for creating resources for the future.
- To assess the impact of financial interventions on migrant households, proposals under this theme can address questions such as
- Observe and document the theory of change on how access to finance, directly and indirectly, impacts the well-being of labour migrant households
- Examine the policy and regulatory obstacles in access to suitable financial products by low-income labour migrant households.
- Assess the role of access to finance in influencing migration/work choices
Expected Output
- The Fellow will be expected to submit a research proposal at the end of the first 3 months of the Fellowship.
- The final research findings from the Fellowship will also be used to frame Shram Sarathi’s migration policy agenda.
- In addition, this Fellowship will enable researchers to create a knowledge base that will be used to build a position on the impact of financial inclusion policies on labour migrant households.
Other Support
- The Fellow will receive access to the staff of Dvara Research and Shram Sarathi for consultations, discussion and research guidance.
- Compensation will be appropriate for the scope of the assignment and Fellows’ level of seniority.
- The Fellow will be permitted the use of office space at a location decided by Shram Sarathi to support the work.
- The Fellow will receive support to communicate his/her findings to relevantstakeholders.
Required skill sets/ qualifications
- A post-graduate degree in the fields of finance/ economics/ management/ development studies or any social science discipline.
- A background in research, documentation and knowledge synthesis is essential.
- At least 3 years of relevant work or research experience.
- Quantitative analysis skills, usage of statistical packages and ability to work with large data sets
- Fluency in Hindi and English
- Superior writing and communication skills
Location
Shram Sarathi is headquartered in Udaipur, a city in the State of Rajasthan in India, where the management team is co-located with Aajeevika Bureau.
- In order to build a holistic understanding of Shram Sarathi’s work, the Fellow will be required to engage extensively with the staff including those in rural branches of Shram Sarathi and Aajeevika Bureau in Rajasthan. Selected candidates must be willing to spend extended periods in field locations.
Eligibility Criteria
This call is open to researchers affiliated with universities, think-tanks and other institutions(only in India), as well as to students enrolled in Doctoral programs. They are looking for proposals from individuals with demonstrated experience executing high-quality research projects from end to end. The proposed research should be related to the Indian context, and any primary research undertaken must be within India.
How to Apply
- Interested researchers can apply via email at the address given on the website.
- Interested researchers can send the following documents
- Curriculum vitae
- Publication or writing sample of their recent academic/ policy work (Max 2)
- Cover letter explaining their interest in this Fellowship (up to 500 words)
- Two academic references whom they may contact
For more information, please visit https://www.dvara.com/research/dvara-research-fellowship-program/