Rural Non-Farm Employment In India- A Review Based On Recent Evidence

Abstract

The evidence of diversification of rural employment structure away from farm to non-farm activities has generated a lot of interest among researchers. The available literature on the subject, however, presents a mixed pattern of empirical evidence related to both prosperity-induced and distress-push factors in the growth of rural non-farm employment. It records also impact on rural non-farm employment, of various factors such as education and literacy, urbanisation, caste and gender. The present study takes into account the latest data available on the subject to review the nature of employment in the rural non-farm sector. It exam;nes the sectoral distribution of employment, employment status (whether self-employed or wage earners and the expected rewards, self-employed workers, employment distribution between organised and unorganised sectors and investigating the productivity levels of the latter which accommodated the most of the nonfarm employment. The investigation carried out from various perspectives led to conclus.ive evidence showing that distress-push factors were predominant in driving workers to non-farm employment. Low level of their education and their status as landless earners devoid of capital resources had driven them to a situation from which there is no escape.