Distress sign got here early: farm, unpaid girls labour surged

TWO SPECIFIC tendencies within the Government’s 2019-20 employment statistics, mapped until the primary three months of the pandemic (April-June 2020), signify a break from the regular structural transformation within the labour market during the last 20 years: reversal of the falling share of agriculture and a decisive turnaround in declining feminine participation.
Both these tendencies clearly level to family misery precipitated by the regular fall in GDP progress charges over the previous years, say analysts. A Union Labour Ministry official, nevertheless, attributed the farm labour surge to a “hard lockdown” in city areas throughout April-June, and described the rebound in feminine participation as a “positive sign”.
The surge in feminine labour pressure participation fee, as evidenced within the newest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) information for July 2019-June 2020, could be interpreted as a constructive signal, however there’s a catch: a lot of this improve is in essentially the most sub-optimal class of unpaid household employees. The rise in agriculture, too, is usually on this class — these working in family enterprises with out drawing wages.
In agriculture, which constitutes about 16 per cent of the GDP, the PLFS information present that in 2019-20, there was a rise in share phrases of these reported to be working within the sector (45.6 per cent, see chart). This comes after a long time of a progressive fall that signalled motion to excessive productiveness jobs outdoors.
At the identical time, the surge for 2019-20 corresponds to a decline in manufacturing and development within the newest survey.
These figures are primarily based on the “usual principal status” and the “subsidiary status” method during which information is obtained for individuals who labored or have been accessible for work for a comparatively lengthy a part of the 12 months previous the date of survey — and people from the remaining inhabitants who had labored no less than for 30 days throughout the identical reference interval.
The findings are extra stark for the “current weekly status” for which the reference interval is of the seven days previous the date of survey. The weekly method is nearer to the worldwide norm, and captures unemployment over a shorter time period whereas the longer-term “usual status” tends to incorporate persistent unemployment and seasonal work patterns.
However, PLFS information for 2019-20 additionally present that the employment fee for unpaid employees in family enterprises in rural and concrete areas elevated to fifteen.9 per cent from 13.3 per cent in 2018-19. For feminine employees, it elevated to 35 per cent in 2019-20 (for rural and concrete areas) from 30.9 per cent in 2018-19.
India had recorded a gradual decline in employment within the agricultural sector similar to the share of output through the years, as is the case for many main creating nations — a pattern that has now been reversed.

“There has been an increase in the share of employment in agriculture in 2019-20 even as the share of agriculture in GDP has declined. Lot of people lost jobs during the pandemic and agriculture became the employment of last resort. The distress, however, was brewing before the pandemic struck. GDP had slowed down, demand had declined and manufacturing was not expanding. Between 2004-05 to 2011-12, many exited agriculture to join the construction sector with a big push to infrastructure,” Radhicka Kapoor, Fellow at Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), stated.
“Rural India was doing well, but after 2011-12, problems surfaced such as the twin balance sheet problem and rural growth story started petering out. With the inability of the construction sector to absorb those who were exiting agriculture and with the manufacturing sector not taking off, workers got pushed back into agriculture,” Kapoor stated.
In the case of ladies, the PLFS information for 2019-20 present a sharper rise within the participation fee, notably in rural areas. But worryingly, a lot of that is once more within the class of unpaid household employees.
For occasion, the general feminine participation fee elevated to 22.8 per cent in 2019-20 from 18.6 per cent in 2018-19. In city areas, the speed elevated to 18.5 per cent in 2019-20 from 16.1 per cent in 2018-19, and in rural areas, extra sharply to 24.7 per cent in 2019-20 from 19.7 per cent in 2018-19.
Correspondingly, although, the speed of females employed as unpaid employees in households elevated to 11.1 per cent (in 2019-20) from 9.6 per cent (2018-19) in city areas and to 42.3 per cent from 37.9 per cent in rural areas.
“If you look at the details, you find that this increase is not in good quality work but in the unpaid family work category or in the unorganised sector. This is not something to be happy about,” P C Mohanan, former appearing head, National Statistical Commission, stated.
The two tendencies, Mohanan stated, can’t be seen pretty much as good when it comes to gender empowerment. “After demonetisation, there was a slump in employment for all categories and the unemployment rate was very high. Things were recovering slowly up to the end of 2019, but then suddenly a pandemic came in and everything got reversed. After the pandemic, it appears women workers are more affected because of the restrictions such as for public transport,” Mohanan stated.
New analysis by Ashwini Deshpande and Jitendra Singh of Ashoka University means that frequent transitions, in addition to fall in participation fee, are “consistent with the demand-side constraints, viz., that women’s participation is falling due unavailability of steady gainful employment”.

Using 12 rounds of a excessive frequency family panel survey, they assert that girls are more likely to be displaced from employment by male employees, particularly when there are destructive financial shocks resembling demonetisation or the pandemic. This pattern had intensified, as corroborated by CMIE information for months past July 2020.
“Industries that employ women haven’t done well. Unlike Bangladesh, we did not have labour intensive manufacturing. Even though rising education levels have been seen among females, there aren’t enough good jobs for them,” Kapoor stated.
The up to date CMIE’s Pyramid Household Surveys for months subsequent to July 2020 present a lack of employment in service and manufacturing sectors that appears to be accompanied by a progressive shift in the direction of low-paying subsistence work.