Rural Labour Market: A Case Study under IRDP

Rural Labour markets have attracted wide attention in recent years. The changes taking place in the socio-economic and demographic characteristics have caused this growing interest. Among the Indian states, the rural labour market of Kerala, exhibits several paradoxes. High unemployment co-exists with high wage rate in the agricultural sector. The shift towards non-farm employment takes place even when the production base is declining. The number of working days by an agricultural labourer has declined over the years. The average daily working hours are also coming down. Such changes have implications on agricultural production which has already begun to stagnate. In this book Rural Labour Market the author examines how far the governmental intervention by means of employment generation programmes have been successful in such a rural labour market. He also advocates the need to expand the production base to provide the much needed fillip to the sustainability of employment already generated.