Dr. Lakshmi Parvathy received her PhD in Public Policy from the Centre for Public Policy, IIM Bangalore. Her expertise lies at the intersection of labour, livelihoods, and public policy, grounded within the disciplinary scope of economic sociology. Her doctoral research involved a workplace ethnography of a labour market intermediary, offers a grounds-up and field-based perspective on evolving work conditions, employment relations and the role of intermediaries. She has previously worked on an ICSSR-sponsored projects on “Gender, labour and the Neoliberal state” housed in the Department of Humanities, IIT Madras and conducted key stakeholder interviews in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. As a Young Professional Fellow at NITI Aayog, she worked with the Project Appraisal and Management Division and the Skill Development Division engaging with various Government of India schemes. As an academic associate with the Centre for Public Policy, IIMB, she worked on a UNICEF Project on Vulnerability Analysis for Children in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and provided teaching assistance. She holds an Integrated Master’s in Development Studies from IIT Madras (2009-2014).

Economic sociology of work and labour, Public Policy Analysis and Development Studies

Wipro Sustainability Scholar Award, 2024

Doctoral Student Paper Research Award, 2024

Nominated and participated from NITI Aayog in training on “Labour Market Statistics and Analysis” at the International Training Centre of ILO at Turin, Italy in 2017.

Cleared Junior Research Fellowship by University Grants Commission in December 2013 (Women Studies)

Thesis: Liquifying Workforce in India: An ethnographic account of labour market intermediaries

Parvathy, Lakshmi, & Kamath, Rajalaxmi. (2024). Labour Contractors (Thekedaars) to Human Resource Companies: Labour Market Intermediaries in India. The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 67(1)

Parvathy, L and Kamath R (2025) Staffing for the retail, e-commerce and q-commerce industries. 65th Annual Conference of Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE) organized by the Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru during 9-11 January 2025.

Parvathy, L; Kamath, R and Picherit, D (2024). Liquifying Workforce in India. Annual Conference for Society for Study of Advanced Economics (SASE). The University of Limerick, Ireland, 27-29 June 2024

Parvathy, L and Kamath, R. “A recounting of the evolution of labour market intermediaries in India”, presented at the 64th Annual Conference of the Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE) organized by the University of Hyderabad, Telangana during 29-31 March 2024.

Parvathy, L and Kamath R. “Labour Market intermediairies in India” presented at the 63rd Annual Conference of the Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), organized by Rajiv Gandhi University, Itangar, Arunachal Pradesh, during 1-3rd March 2023.

Parvathy, L and Kamath, R. "From thekedaar to Staffing Solution Providers – The evolution of the Indian Labour Contractors. 62nd Annual Conference of Indian Society of Labour Economics, IIT Roorkee, India (2022)

Parvathy, L and Dé, Rahul. ICT and the Gig-Economy: An Appropriate Technology? In Chatterjee, D and Sethi, D (Eds). Proceedings of 8th Pan IIM World Management Conference (578-586), IIM Kozhikode, India. (2021)

Thampi, B and Parvathy, L. ‘Bio-political Governmentality and the LGBT Mobilization: A Case Study of the state of Tamil Nadu in India’, Dr. Binitha V Thampi, presented at 24th Annual Women and Society Conference, Marist College, NY, October 2015 and Lakshmi Parvathy presented at the 10th Annual SASA (South Asian Studies Association) Conference, Delhi, March 2016

Ugargol, A.P., Parvathy, L. (2023). Precarity of Informal Work, Absence of Social Security, and Ageism: The Persistence of Social Inequalities and Challenges for Older Adults’ Labor Force Participation in India. In: Handbook of Aging, Health and Public Policy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1914-4_173-1