Mobility and Its Determinants at the Lower Echelons of Society

This article, based on household panel data collected from slum surveys in the national capital of India, Delhi, aims at assessing the phenomenon of mobility and its determinants in the context of the city’s slums. It notes that mobility occurred in a highly limited sense and, second, the extent of mobility is not uniform across slum households, which, in the literature, is interpreted as time-independent mobility. The article also envisages changes in terms of overall well-being rather than reflecting only on income mobility. It tries to identify the determinants of mobility through various econometric models, and given the city’s environment, individual-specific factors such as educational attainment are important. Even within the city, activities and labour market characteristics vary widely across areas, and the outcomes in terms of mobility tend to be different, reflecting physical segmentation of the labour market, mobility constraints and variations in individual motivational drive.