Class XII – Employment and Unemployment in India – PYQs

Ans. ‘‘It is necessary to create employment in the formal sector rather than in the informal sector.’’ The statement is defended because workers of the formal sector enjoys social security benefits and job security which remain protected by the labour laws. On the other hand, people engaged in the informal sector do not enjoy any social security benefits and do not have job security. As a result, informal workers are generally very poor and live in slums.

Ans. Yes, I agree with the given statement. The difference in participation rates is very high between urban and rural women. In urban areas, for every 100 urban females, only about 14 are engaged in some economic activities. In rural areas, for every 100 rural women, about 26 participate in the employment market.

It is common to find that where men are able to earn high incomes, families discourage female members from taking up jobs. Earnings of urban male workers are generally higher than rural males and so urban families do not want females to work.

Apart from this, many activities of the households in which urban women are engaged, are not recognised as productive work, while women working on farms in the rural areas are considered a part of the workforce if they are being paid wages in cash or in the form of food grains.

Ans. I would suggest the following activities to generate employment in village

(i) There should be multiple cropping in the village.

(ii) Other activities related to agriculture such as plantation, etc. horticulture, dairying, animal husbandry, etc. should be encouraged.

(iii) Cottage industry should be encouraged.

(iv) More and more facilities of education, health services, roads, etc. should be created in the village.

Ans. Less woman are found in regular salaried employment due to the following reasons

(a) Lack of Education Facilities: Female education is not given due importance in India and hence, majority of the woman in India do not have the educational qualification and professional skills required.

(b) Discouragement from Family: In India, families do not want the female member to step out from the house for work especially if it is for long hours, as in regular salaried employment.

(c) Family Responsibilities: Women are expected to look after household chores including food, taking care of children. This possess a restriction for women to be engaged in regular employment.

Ans. The given data indicates that over the given period, the proportion of workforce in primary sector has gone down significantly. Whereas, the employment shares of both secondary sector and the service sector has increased gradually.

While the share of secondary sector has gone up by approximately 9% recently, the corresponding figure for service sector has gone up by approximately 7.1%. This also shows that dependency on agriculture remained high as secondary and service sector wasn’t created enough employment.

Ans. From the given table, following points can be noticed about the nature of workforce distribution

(i) Majority of the workforce was residing in the rural areas in India in the year 1972-73. The total workforce was 233 million out of which 194 million workers were from rural areas and 39 million from the urban areas. Thus, 83% of the total workforce was rural as compared to 17% of the urban work- force. The reason for this was that a majority of population was living in rural areas during that period.

(ii) The rural workforce comprises of 64% of the male workforce and 36% of female workforce. On the other hand, the urban workforce comprises of about 82% of male workforce and 18% of female workforce. This shows that participation of males in both rural as well as urban areas is higher than that of the females because of lack of opportunities available to women for acquiring education and also the social structure and family norms which did not encourage women to work.

(iii) Another feature of workforce distribution is the difference between urban female workforce and rural female workforce. Females in the rural areas formed 36 % of the workforce, whereas, the females in the urban areas formed only 18% of the workforce. This may be attributed to the fact that where men are able to earn high incomes, families discourage female members from taking up jobs. Earnings of urban male workers are generally higher than rural males and so the urban families do not want females to work.

Thus, it can be concluded by analysing the above table that majority of the workforce was from the rural areas and there was low female participation rate in the workforce during that period.

Ans. (i) Informalisation of labour force in India implies that there is a continuous rise in the percentage of workforce in informal sector as a percentage of total work force and a corresponding decline in the percentage of workforce in formal sector. These sectors can be understood as follows

(a) Formal Sector: All the public sector establishments and those private sector establishments which employ 10 or more hired workers, are known as formal sector establishments. Those who are working in this sector, enjoy social security benefits and they earn more than the informal sector employees.

(b) Informal Sector: This sector includes all those private sector enterprises which employ less than 10 workers. This sector includes farmers, agricultural labourers, owner of small enterprises etc. They are not entitled to any social security benefits

(ii) Worker population ratio is an indicator which is used to analyse the employment situation in the country. It is measured as a ratio of workforce to total population of the country.

Worker Population = Total Number of Workers /Total Population × 100

Ans. Worker Population Ratio = Total Number of Workers /Total Population × 100

∴ Number of Workers = Total Population /100 × Worker Population Ratio