Estimating Employment in India's Cultural and Creative Economy: Evidence from the Periodic Labour Force Survey

Havishaye Puri (), Tanu M. Goyal (), Shravani Prakash () and Anjhana Ramesh ()
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Havishaye Puri: Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER)

Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) Working Paper from Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi, India

Abstract: This paper presents an empirical estimate of its contribution to employment, adapting the international classification frameworks used by UNESCO and the European Union (EU) to the Indian context through a mapping of cultural domains and value chain stages to the National Industrial Classification (NIC-2008). Applying this framework to unit-level data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for 2017-18 and 2025, the paper estimates that approximately 57 million workers, amounting to nearly 9 per cent of India's total workforce, are engaged in cultural and creative activities. Moreover, there has been a 40 per cent increase in the culture-creative workforce over seven years and female employment has doubled. Yet, at present, there is concentration of employment in low-value manufacturing and real wages for women have stagnated.

Keywords: Cultural economy; Cultural and creative industries; Employment estimation; Wagelevels; Wage differentials; India; icrier (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 page
Date: 2026-08
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