Born and raised in Delhi, I studied Sociology at Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi, graduating with first-class honours while serving as President of the Department. I went on to pursue an MSc in Development Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where my thesis Bargaining Across Borders: The Case of Irregular Migrant Women Workers in India received a distinction and the LSE LIFE Research Prize 2019.
I completed my PhD from the Department of International Development, London School of Economics and Political Science. My work comparatively examines informal migrant workers’ access to welfare across sub-national welfare ecosystems in India through the lens of substantive citizenship. In particular, I examine the implementation of labour- based welfare rights through the Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) welfare boards and the e-Shram portal, examining how digitalisation, formalisation, and sub-national welfare regimes shape migrant workers’ access to social rights. This work was supported with awards from LSE and the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
I have engaged extensively in policy and research with organisations such as ODI Global, the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, the International Centre of Tax and Development, Centre for Policy Research, and ICRW, among others. Some of the policy outputs I have contributed to include: UNICEF study on Assessing Portability of Social Protection for Migrant Children in India; the ODI paper on Transforming social protection for irreversible climate change-induced loss and damage.
Alongside academic publishing, I write widely for different audiences, including newspapers and other media, such as Indian Express, India Development Review, LSE International Development Blog, and The Wire, among others. In 2021, I was a Migration Fellow with India Migration Now and Bandhu Urban Tech, where I contributed to research and practice that informed grounded interventions and advocacy efforts for migrant workers.
I founded Voices of Informality, a knowledge platform that translates ethnographic research on informal workers and migrants into accessible narratives and resources co-created with civil society partners for advocacy and policy debates.
For collaboration or consultancy, please reach me at h.sinha@lse.ac.uk or hsinha17@gmail.com.