Status and Dynamics of Rural Employment

The development factors like commercialization of agriculture, increased demand for non-agricultural goods and services, growing literacy, urbanization, are pulling the labour force away from farm sector to more lucrative jobs. At the same time, distress factors like poverty; unemployment, underemployment and natural calamities like drought, floods, etc. are pushing the rural workforce away from the farm sector to various non-farm activities to supplement their income. Although the non-agricultural sector has made a significant contribution to employment generation, very little is known about the nature, extent, dynamics, determinants and problems of non-agricultural activities. The usual head count method of estimating the NFE, based either on Census or NSS data, does not give an insight into the nature and the character of the rural non-farm sector.  Based on the empirical evidences the book probes into rural non-farm sector dynamics such as income, castes hierarchies, basic amenities, urban accessibility, education, social capital, impacts on women, etc.