Earnings and investment differentials between migrants and natives

This paper explores whether there exists any difference in the earnings of migrant and native street vendors, and if so, in what ways is this difference prominent. In order to accomplish the objective, we have collected data from women street vendors from Bengaluru city. The results depict that although there is no significant difference in the earnings between natives and migrants related to street vending business, a significant difference does exist in the size of investments made by them i.e., to earn the same amount of income, migrants need to invest more than natives. Moreover, the results, based on the Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition Method, indicate that the pre-labour market endowment factors do not make a significant contribution to the overall difference in the rate of returns. A significant difference does exist mainly because of the coefficient differences, which can be attributed to discrimination.