State of rural labour markets in India

Partha Saha and Sher Verick

ILO Working Papers from International Labour Organization

Abstract: In India, while contribution of agriculture to GDP has been declining, agriculture still remains mainstay of the rural economy by employing almost half of the population. However, the gap between job seekers in rural areas and employment opportunities in agriculture has been widening and non-farm sector has become an increasingly important source of livelihood. This paper analyses rural diversification across States in rural India, factors responsible for non- agricultural employment, and identifies industries within rural non-farm sector which are generating employment opportunities. Further, paper also looks into role of agriculture in rural diversification. This study is based on Employment and Unemployment Survey (National sample Survey Organization) for the years 1999-2000 & 2011-12, and All India Debt & Investment Survey (National sample Survey Organization) for the years 2002-3 & 2012-13. The broad story that emerged from this analysis is that of a significant shift towards non-farm employment in rural areas, and this shift happened predominantly among economically weaker sections of the rural society. Access to land was an important determinant in this process of rural employment diversification.

Keywords: rural employment; nonfarm employment; labour market; rural economy; agriculture; working conditions; regional level (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 p.) pages
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in ILO Asia-Pacific working paper series

Downloads: (external link)
https://ilo.userservices.exlibrisgroup.com/view/de ... NST/1243439980002676 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ilo:ilowps:994927490402676

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ILO Working Papers from International Labour Organization Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Vesa Sivunen ().