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Population ageing, extended coverage of beneficiaries and rise in benefit levels of a public-funded universal social pension scheme (USPS) for elderly individuals may exert fiscal pressures on India’s General Government. Using accounting frameworks, this paper aims at an assessment of public expenditure requirements of USPS scenarios in the short term and their long-term implications for fiscal sustainability.

Short-term public expenditure requirements are quantified for the current pension scheme and proposed USPS scenarios, if pension benefits are adjustable for official poverty line, per capita income, the inflation rate and income elasticity of public pension expenditure. Long-term fiscal sustainability is determined by the methodology of generational accounting.

Public expenditure requirements for the USPS scenarios are remarkably higher as compared to the current expenditure on the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS). Short-term analyses offer economic justifications for an increase in pension benefits either by a single adjustment factor or combined adjustment factors but at a cost of remarkable increase in public expenditure requirements. Long-term analyses show that the IGNOAPS and proposed USPS scenarios are fiscally sustainable but sensitive to five parameters (productivity growth, inflation rate, discount rate, income elasticity public pension expenditure and income elasticity of health expenditure). A policy mix of these parameters leads to fiscal sustainability of the IGNOAPS and proposed USPS scenarios with differential impacts on inter-generational distribution of welfare by tax and transfer adjustments.

Application of the generational accounting methodology is new for India’s pension economics and may have applicability and relevance for future extensions and analyses of other fiscal policy issues. This paper sets a benchmark for such extensions and applications.

The analyses and implications offer economic justifications for increase in levels of pension benefits by the current pension scheme and proposed USPS scenarios, introduction of sustainable USPS scenarios under current fiscal policies and choice of design parameters for a fiscally sustainable USPS.

Social pensions have implications for providing income security and livelihood benefits for all elderly civilians in society.

The paper adds to the existing knowledge on economic analyses and fiscal implications of India’s old age pension policies in general and social pension policies in particular. Subject to the comparability of socio-economic structures and pension programmes, the methodology and public policy analyses of this paper may be of relevance and applicability for developing countries in Asia.

The purpose of this study is the empirical measurement and analysis of economic size and performance of dispersed and clustered small‐scale enterprises (SSEs) in India.

Methodology is descriptive and comparative, using a combination of different official databases. Economic size is measured by distribution of SSEs by employment, output, fixed capital investment, and export variables. Measurement of economic performance is focused on output/capital ratio, output/labour ratio, and labour/capital ratio.

The results offer evidence for economic diversity in the size compositions and performance variations of dispersed and clustered SSEs; and bigger economic size and higher economic performance of clustered than dispersed SSEs.

Subject to the comparability of economic structure, the results and implications for India are of relevance for promotion and development of clustered SSEs in other developing countries.

From the viewpoint of policy formulation, the results offer a strong empirical basis for a cluster approach rather than a dispersed approach for promotion and development of SSEs in India. The cluster approach has implications for establishing linkages between formal and informal SSEs and for elimination of smallness of dispersed SSEs.

The paper provides a comparative analysis of economic size and performance of the dispersed and clustered SSEs by consolidating the diverse databases in India.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to study the concept of infaq in Islam, investigate its practice in Malaysia, analyse its role in public universities (PUs), investigate the issues and constraints of infaq for financing of higher education in Malaysia and suggest recommendations for improvement.

Methodology/approach – This study used a qualitative methodology and was conducted to obtain information on the practice of infaq in financing tertiary-level education in Malaysia, to learn about the recommended practice of infaq in Islam, to analyse its implementation and to explore the constraints faced in the financing of higher education in Malaysia.

Findings – This study indicated that the practice of infaq helps to ease the burden of rising fees and the cost of living for university students.

Research limitations/implications – The study only focused on the role of infaq in financing higher education in Malaysia. The sample for this study involved four PUs in the Klang Valley.

Originality/value – This study provides new contributions to the field of education infaq in Malaysia.

India is facing a double burden of malnutrition, i.e. undernutrition and obesity. Women and adolescent health and nutrition are very relevant issues which have not received much attention it deserves in India, especially in the context of a girl child. Hence, the purpose of this study is to assess malnutrition among women and adolescent girls as well as the associated factors.

An attempt was made to assess malnutrition among women and adolescent girls and associated factors. The required data was collected from the north (616) and south transects (659) sample households of Bangalore constituting a total sample size of 1,275. The data was analyzed by adopting multiple linear regression and multinomial logistic regression analysis using STATA software.

The effects of this study simply confirmed that, urbanization had an instantaneous effect on dietary repute of women and adolescent girls, while transferring throughout the gradient from rural to urban with the growing significance of weight problems and obese. In adolescent girls, about 31% were underweight followed by normal weight and overweight across rural–urban interface of Bangalore. The factors such as education, consumption of meat and animal products, a dummy for urban, diabetes and blood pressure were significantly and positively influencing the nutritional status (Body Mass Index) of women across rural–urban interface. While consumption of vegetables, wealth index and per capita income had a positive and significant influence on the nutritional status of adolescent girls.

With limited studies and data available in Karnataka, especially in Bengaluru, one of the fastest growing cities in the world. Against this backdrop, the study was conducted to assess the prevalence of malnutrition among women and adolescents and its association with various socio-economic variables.

Over the last four decades – the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s – the share of manufacturing in gross domestic product (at current prices) in India has stagnated, whereas the share of services (construction excluded) has increased significantly. The relatively mediocre growth performance of the manufacturing sector as compared to the services sector in India has emerged as a matter of concern. There has been growing recognition in policymaking circles and academia that India needs accelerated growth in the manufacturing industry in the next few decades, so that India's economic growth is led by manufacturing rather than services. In this paper, a comparative analysis of the growth in total factor productivity (TFP) of formal and informal segments of 10 groups of Indian manufacturing industries is undertaken, which is calculated based on KLEMS data obtained from National Accounts Statistics (NAS), published annually by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) of India. The period covered for the analysis of TFP growth is 1980–1981 to 2019–2020, which is broken into four sub-periods. Year wise total factor productivity growth (TFPG) of different industries for the sample period shows a fluctuating growth rate, which includes both positive and negative trends. Decade wise growth and overall TFPG of the different industries also indicate an oscillating pattern, that is, a mix of positive and negative TFPG. The minimum overall TFPG is observed in the coke, refined petroleum products and nuclear fuel industries, and the maximum in electrical and optical equipment for the period 1981–2020.

The contribution of women toward entrepreneurial activities has gained significant attention in recent years because of economic and social concerns, government support and initiatives and increased education and awareness. Women’s entrepreneurial activity has increased and women-owned businesses can today be found in every sector of the economy, irrespective of region. In India, government bodies such as the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and several other organizations (private and NGOs) have adopted considerable measures to promote women entrepreneurship (WE). To improve WE, the critical factors of WE adoption need to be identified and evaluated. The purpose of this paper is to identify, prioritize and evaluate the critical success factors of WE adoption in Indian MSMEs.

This paper proposes a methodology based on fuzzy analytical hierarchal process to prioritize the critical success factors of WE adoption. A numerical analysis of Indian MSMEs is presented to demonstrate the use of the proposed method. This proposed method considered fuzzy framework, which can handle impreciseness and uncertainty. Sensitivity analysis is also performed to test the robustness of the proposed model.

Potential critical success factors are identified from relevant literature and validated by industry experts. This research finalize the critical success factors of WE adoption in Indian MSMEs under seven dimensions, so prioritization of identified critical success factors can be developed and insights relationship of factors would be explored. The results of the study found that individual, management and government dimensions take paramount importance while women aim to become entrepreneurs in Indian MSMEs.

This study is limited to identifying evaluation factors; other factors have not been identified and categorized. Evaluation is one by experts in this area so it is natural that views of decision-makers may be subjective and vary with regard to industry-type, priorities, resources, etc.

This study will help industry to identify, evaluate and prioritize factors for successful implementation of women entrepreneurship. MSMEs could device these factors by applying the outcome of the study in their decisions with higher priority to implement women entrepreneurship culture.

Potential factors are identified from relevant literature and validated by industry experts. Indian MSMEs could device these factors by applying the outcome of the study in their decisions with higher priority to adopt women entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this study is to explore and prioritize the factors that determine the social insurance contribution of unorganized workers.

A two-stage procedure was adopted to recognize and prioritize factors influencing the social insurance participation of unorganized workers: first, crucial factors influencing unorganized workers’ contribution towards social insurance were identified by employing exploratory factor analysis, and in the second phase, the fuzzy analytical hierarchal process was applied to rank the specified criteria and then sub-criteria by assigning weights.

Four broad factors were identified, namely, economic, political, operational and socio-psychological, that significantly influence unorganized workers’ contribution towards social insurance. Later findings revealed that the prime influencer of unorganized workers’ contribution is employment contracts followed by average earnings, delivery of quality services, eligibility and accessibility.

The research findings are feasible as the basic propositions are based on real-world scenario. The identification and ranking of factors have the potential to be used as a checklist for policymakers when designing pension and social insurance for unorganized workers. If it is not possible to consider all, the criteria and sub-criteria assigned upper rank can be given priority to extend pension coverage for a large group of working poor.

The key factors driving social insurance contributions have been highlighted by studying the stakeholders’ perceptions at a micro level. By comprehending the challenges, there is a possibility of covering a large section of the working poor into social insurance coverage.

This paper is believed to be one of its kinds to acknowledge a combination of factors that determine the contribution of unorganized workers to social insurance. This study is an empirical investigation to prioritize the essential drivers of social insurance participation by low-income cohorts in the context of emerging countries. The present approach of employing fuzzy logic has also very limited use in social insurance literature yet.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the input, process and output factors (along with their manifest variables) of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and to establish cause and effect relationships amongst the factors and sub-factors. Systems thinking, a holistic approach, is used to carry out qualitative analysis of the feedback loops.

A well-structured questionnaire was developed to gather the relevant data to identify the factors affecting the performance of SMEs in a holistic manner. A total of 150 responses were collected during November 2015–March 2016. Factor analysis and path analysis were used to establish causal relationships between input, process and output factors. The systems thinking approach has been used for qualitative analysis.

Feedback loops have been identified amongst input-process-output-input factors and amongst sub-factors. They enabled authors to infer that the managers/owners of SMEs are systems thinkers, if not completely, at least partially. Six negative feedback loops and one positive feedback loop prevail. System behaviour arises out of the interaction of positive and negative feedback loops; it appears that in the long-run, the SMEs attain their target levels. The following inferences are drawn: circular relationships are identified amongst input, processes and organisational performance (OP), modern management tools such as just in times, Kanban have long-term benefits and are perceived as ineffective by small enterprises and formal financing and functional transparency enhances OP.

Systems thinking, a holistic approach, has been used to study the effect of input, process and output factors on one another. Such studies are sparse, especially, in the Indian context. Many studies have been conducted to study the effect of input and of processes on performance such as innovation, information technology, human resource, technology, government regulation on performance of SMEs in a silo but, rarely all together. The qualitative analysis adds value to the research. Many of the outcomes of the research have been largely discussed in Indian print media which indicates the pragmatic approach of the research.

This study aims to analyze the structure and trend in employment in the Indian economy between 1980-8081 and 2015-2016.

Use of India KLEMS data set. Estimate growth rate of employment and discuss employment prospects using “Point” employment elasticity.

Whilst India’s GDP growth rate has been quite impressive since the reforms of 1991, the rate of employment growth, especially in the recent period of 2003-2015, has been quite slow (1 per cent) with low employment elasticity (0.1). The pattern of employment growth has also been imbalanced with slow rate of employment growth in manufacturing and rapid growth rate in the construction sector. India now also has low labour force participation rate and a large share of informal employment in the economy.

The limitation is the lack of reliable data on employment for the recent period.

With overall low employment elasticity, India would have to explore sectors where more employment opportunities could be created.

India has to create not only more jobs but also “good” jobs.

The India KLEMS data provide a time series for employment, which has been used in this paper to find “Point” elasticity instead of arc elasticity of employment and is an improvement over existing employment elasticity estimates.