A 2021 study of migrant women doing home-based garment work in Indian cities found that 35 of 50 surveyed workers had not been paid for orders they completed before lockdown. It also reported long workdays and very low piece-rate earnings during lockdown. These are documented pandemic-era findings—not verified wage rates or conditions for 2026.
What the study found about unpaid orders
The study, “Examining the ‘Labour’ in Labour Migration: Migrant Workers’ Informal Work Arrangements and Access to Labour Rights in Urban Sectors”, describes migrant women doing garment tasks at home, often through contractors or agents. Of the 50 women in its home-based worker sample, 35 said they had not received payment for orders completed before lockdown. Contractors reportedly cited market closures and cancelled orders.
The study also links non-payment and deductions to conditions beyond lockdown, including market fluctuations, cancellations and quality checks. Its small, situated sample documents workers’ reported experiences; it does not establish how often these practices affected all home-based workers or every Indian city.
How piece-rate work and production costs affect take-home income
Home-based garment work described in the study included trimming threads, sewing buttons or pockets, embroidery and embellishment. Workers were paid by the piece, so income depended on the amount of work completed and accepted. The reported arrangements connected workers to orders through contractors or agents rather than describing a direct employment relationship.
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Workers also bore production costs such as materials, sewing machines and electricity. The study’s quoted daily earnings included those costs, so they should not be read as net income after expenses. It also notes invisible family labor, including children’s contributions, which means a worker’s reported earnings may not reflect all the time involved in completing orders.
Reported hours and earnings were specific to the study period
The 2021 study reported that surveyed workers could earn ₹40–₹50 per day while working 10–12 hours. It said lockdown orders could reduce earnings to ₹10–₹15 per day for the same hours. These are historical figures from the study’s specific circumstances, not current wage estimates, a statutory rate or a claim about every worker.
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Piece-rate pay, worker-funded inputs and the risk of cancelled or unpaid orders can all affect what remains from a day’s work. The cited findings illustrate those mechanisms in the cases studied; they do not quantify their prevalence today.
How the cases fit into the wider lockdown disruption
The International Labour Organization (ILO) placed these experiences within a much wider informal-employment shock. Its 2021 report, “Impact on labour supply due to COVID-19 containment measures in India: An informal employment analysis,” estimated that initial lockdown measures directly affected 104 million informal workers. Under relaxed notifications, the modeled estimate was 69.5 million.
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Those figures are estimates of first-order labor-supply impacts based on lockdown notifications, industry status and a remote-labor index. They are not a direct count of people who permanently lost jobs, and they are not estimates specific to home-based garment workers. The ILO report’s foreword states: “The lockdown impacted the Indian labour supply by reducing working hours and causing job losses, and workers without social protection or paid leave saw a reduction in their labour income.”
A separate ILO assessment published in June 2020 described employment vulnerability during the crisis: “India – Rapid assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on employment.” The broader context helps explain why informal workers and migrants were exposed to interrupted work and income, but it does not replace evidence about the specific garment workers in the 2021 study.
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Home-based garment workers are not domestic workers
Home-based garment workers produce or finish goods in their own homes. Domestic workers perform paid household work in someone else’s home. The distinction matters: an ILO report on occupational safety and employment conditions for domestic workers concerns a different workforce and cannot be treated as direct evidence about garment production or its pay arrangements. See the ILO’s 2021 report on occupational safety and health practices for domestic workers.
Likewise, findings about migrants generally should not be attributed specifically to home-based garment workers. A 2022 panel study of Indian migrants found unequal post-COVID recovery outcomes for women and men through June 2021, but it did not isolate home-based workers or establish what conditions look like now: “Indian female migrants face greater barriers to post-COVID recovery than males: Evidence from a panel study.”
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What is—and is not—established about conditions today
The available studies document unpaid completed orders, low reported piece-rate earnings and long hours during the pandemic period, alongside wider disruption to informal and migrant livelihoods. The later migrant panel evidence extends only through June 2021 and does not focus on home-based garment work. These sources do not establish whether the same pay levels, hours or non-payment patterns continued unchanged into 2026. The historical rupee figures should not be used as a current benchmark.
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