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The exploration of rural agricultural labour households believes significance, as they represent a vulnerable section of the rural population, whose percentage has increased drastically in almost all the states in India. An important trend in large number of theoretical and empirical studies on the functioning of rural labour markets has been appeared to explain the patterns of income, employment, extent of earning and indebtedness prevalent among these households. This book analyzes the trend in wages, inter-district and intra-district differences in wage rate and gender differences among the rural agricultural labour households in rural Orissa with a view to understand their livelihood pattern. The book also analyzes pattern of employment, income, extent of indebtedness and earning prevalent among rural landless labourers and agricultural households in rural Orissa. Further, the book discusses the prevailing contractual arrangement of the rural labour market. This book would be very useful for students, academicians, researchers, activists and policy makers for understanding the dynamics of rural labour market, wage determination, livelihood pattern and development.

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Sushanta Mahapatra is working as a Researcher at Institute for Financial Management and Research, Center for Micro Finance, Chennai. He received PhD in Economics from the University of Madras through the Madras Institute of Development Studies. His decade of research interests include livelihood, natural resource management and rural development.

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