Skilled plumbers, electricians and carpenters are earning better in the gig economy than on real-estate projects. Meanwhile, giving cash to women has become a part of the standard toolkit for politicians to win state elections. That could be affecting their participation in construction crews far away from their village homes. (Women, often hired together with their husbands to headload bricks and cement bags, break stones, mix mortar and cement, sift sand, or to clean, account for 11% of India’s construction workforce.)
