ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the background to the Insecurity Hypothesis (IH), and presents the items of inquiry of the survey, geographical coverage, brief history and trends in the region which have shaped the trends in the labour market. It provides special emphasis to the policies that induced structural changes in the economy. The chapter highlights the salient policies which have influenced the structure of the region’s economy and the labour market in turn. In India, there are some studies to indicate the increasing flexibility of labour, but attempts to quantify and measure insecurity and its correlates that flexibility may cause have been meagre. Industrial policies that influenced growth of manufacturing industry in Mumbai and the rest of Mumbai Metropolitan Region were devised and implemented at three different levels, such as national, state, and regional. Policies aimed at industrial dispersal had an impact on the employment pattern within BMR.
