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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Over half of India's workforce self-employed: NSSO

-The Economic Times

 

Over half the country's workforce is self-employed and women receive less pay than men for similar jobs, latest government data shows. While 51% of the country's total workforce are self-employed, only 15.5% are regular wagers or salaried employees and 33.5% casual labourers, according to a survey by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), the key findings of which were released on Friday.

The number of people selfemployed is higher in rural areas at about 54.2%, against 41.4% in urban areas. The ministry of statistics and programme implementation said the highlights of the 66th round of the NSSO survey have been released for use in planning, policy formulation, decision support and as inputs for further statistical exercises by the government.

The indicators are based on a central sample of 1,00,957 households, of which 59,129 were from rural areas and 41,828 from urban. The samples were collected between July 2009 and June 2010 and were drawn from 7,402 villages and 5,252 urban blocks across the country, the ministry said.

Data shows that unemployment as a percentage of the overall population, population unemployed, and unemployment as a percentage of the labour force, unemployment rate, declined. The survey reveals that unemployment rate under the broadest definition of employment, usual status, declined to 20 per 1000 from 23 per 1000. It also shows that female employees, both rural and urban, received less remuneration than their male counterparts for doing similar jobs. The average daily wage in urban areas stood at Rs 365, againstRs 232 in rural areas.

While the average earnings every day for male workers wasRs 249, it was only Rs 156 for women, indicating a female-male wage ratio of 0.63. The ratio was 0.82 in urban areas, with males earningRs 377 and women Rs 309. While 41.4% of the urban workforce earned regular wages, it was only 7.3% in rural areas.

The current large round will be carried out again, as 2009-10 is considered an 'abnormal' year in the backdrop of the poor rains and the economic recovery post the global financial crises. The survey found that the perday wage rates for casual labourers in works other than public works in rural areas was Rs 93, against Rs 122 in urban areas. In rural areas, male casual labourers engaged in such activities received an average of Rs 102 per day. However, it was only Rs 69 for women.

In urban areas, the wage rates for casual labourers engaged in work other than public works wasRs 132 for males and Rs 77 for females. The difference between the wages for males and females was visible even in projects under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act ( MGNREGA )).

In rural areas, daily wage rates for casual labourers in MGNREG public works wereRs 91 for males and Rs 87 for females. In public works other than MGNREG, it was Rs 98 for males and Rs 86 for females. The survey's key indicators showed that in rural areas nearly 63% of male workers were engaged in agriculture. The percentage engaged in secondary and tertiary sectors stood at 19% and 18%, respectively. Historically, in rural areas a larger percentage of the female workforce is involved in agriculture.

The survey showed that nearly 79% of the female workforce was engaged in agriculture while secondary and tertiary sectors shared 13% and 8% of female workers, respectively. In urban areas, the share of the tertiary sector was more, followed by that of the secondary sector, while the agricultural sector engageg only a small number of total workers for both male and females. In urban areas, almost 59% of male workers and 53% of the female workers were engaged in the tertiary sector.

The secondary sector employed nearly 35% of male workers and 33% of female workers, while the share of urban workforce in agriculture was nearly 6% of male and 14% for female workers. This NSSO survey covered the whole country except interior villages in Nagaland situated beyond five kilometres of a bus route, villages in Andaman and Nicobar Islands which remain inaccessible throughout the year and the Leh, Kargil and Poonch districts of Jammu and Kashmir.