Standard Census Definition

Main Worker is a person who works for at least 183 days in a year.

Marginal Worker is a person who works for less than 183 days in a year.

Work participation rate is defined as the percentage of total workers (main and marginal) to total population.

It is observed that in India, the proportion of workers (both main and marginal) is only 39 per cent (2001) leaving a vast majority of 61 per cent as non-workers. This indicates an economic status in which there is a larger proportion of dependent population, further indicating possible existence of large number of unemployed or under employed people.

The proportion of working population, of the states and Union Territories show a moderate variation from about 25 per cent in Goa to about 53 per cent in Mizoram. The states with larger percentages of workers are Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Meghalaya. Among the Union Territories, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu have higher participation rate.

It is understood that, in the context of a country like India, the work participation rate tends to be higher in the areas of lower levels of economic development since number of manual workers are needed to perform the subsistence or near subsistence economic activities.

The occupational composition (see box) of India’s population (which actually means engagement of an individual in farming, manufacturing trade, services or any kind of professional activities) shows a large proportion of primary sector workers compared to secondary and tertiary sectors. About 58.2 per cent of total working population are cultivators and agricultural labourers, whereas only 4.2% of workers are engaged in household industries and 37.6 % are other workers including non-household industries, trade, commerce, construction and repair and other services. As far as the occupation of country’s male and female population is concerned, male workers out-number female workers in all the three sectors.

The number of female workers is relatively high in primary sector, though in recent years there has been some improvement in work participation of women in secondary and tertiary sectors. It is important to note that the proportion of workers in agricultural sector in India has shown a decline over the last few decades (66.85% in 1991 to 58.2% in 2001).

Consequently, the participation rate in secondary and tertiary sector has registered an increase. This indicates a shift of dependence of workers from farm-based occupations to nonfarm based ones, indicating a sectoral shift in the economy of the country. The spatial variation of work participation rate in different sectors in the country is very wide. For instance, the states like Himachal Pradesh and Nagaland have very large shares of cultivators.

On the other hand states like Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh have higher proportion of agricultural labourers. The highly urbanised areas like Delhi, Chandigarh and Puducherry have a very large proportion of workers being engaged in other services. This indicates not only availability of limited farming land, but also large scale urbanisation and industrialisation requiring more workers in non-farm sectors. (Table T4 and Fig. S 15)

LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION IN INDIA

The Economic Survey (2015-16) states that the proportion of economically active population (15-59 years) has increased from 57.7 per cent to 63.3 per cent during 1991 to 2013, as per Sample Registration System (SRS) data for 2013.

♤ The Fourth Annual Employment-Unemployment Survey conducted by the Labour Bureau during the period January 2014 to July 2014 has shown that the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) is 52.5 % for all persons.

♤ However, the LFPR for rural areas stands at 54.7% which is much greater than that for rural areas i.e. 47.2 %.

♤ The LFPR for women is significantly lower than that for males in both rural and urban areas.

♤ As per the Survey, the Unemployment Rate is 4.7 % in rural areas and 5.5% in urban areas. The total unemployment rate reported is 4.9% as per the Labour Bureau Survey. These figures are much higher than the all India unemployment rates of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO, 2012-11) which reported unemployment rate of 2.3% for rural areas, 3.8% for Urban Areas and 2.7% for India as a whole.

For state wise labor participation rate refer TABLE T8.