Rural unemployment along with urban unemployment is termed as one among the serious problems in India, since it creates a ripple effect across the economy. Apart from the personal loss to individual and their family, it results in lower purchasing power (economically), consumption of goods and services will go down.
Let’s first understand the meaning of unemployment.
– An unemployed person is one who having potentialities and willingness to earn, is
unable to find a remunerative work. Sociologically, it has been defined as “forced or involuntary
separation from remunerative work of a member of the normal working force (i.e. 15-59 age
groups) during normal working time at normal wages and under normal conditions”. D’mello
(1969) has defined it as “a condition in which an individual is not in a state of remunerative
occupation despite his desire to do so”
The Planning Commission of India has described a person as
“marginally unemployed” when he/she remains without work for six months in a year.
According to 2011 census survey, unemployment rate in rural areas is 7.15% . More than 51% of the total unemployed persons live in three states of northern India
(West Bengal, Bihar and U.P.) and two states of southern India (Kerala and Tamil Nadu). (Source ~Civil service India)
Economic growth of a country depends upon the skills of its people and the application of knowledge, inherited or acquired by them. Optimum utilisation of human resources undoubtedly leads to considerable degree of economic development of a country. Unemployed human resources signify that a section of the society is without any source of income. Hence they experience misery and starvation.
These will lead to lower consumption of goods production. Lower production leads to lower contribution to revenue to country and it finally affect the economy of India.
There has been a rise in the weekly unemployment rate in both rural and urban areas. Data from CMIE indicates that there has been a sharper rise in the rural unemployment rate.the national unemployment rate stands at 7.14 per cent, up from 5.98 per cent in the week-ago period. (Source~Mint)
While the overall unemployment rate has increased in the week ended July 25, the situation is much better than the previous three months when joblessness increased sharply amid the second wave of Covid-19.
The unemployment rate in urban India has stayed below 9 per cent since the beginning of July, while it remained under 8 per cent at the national level.
Meanwhile, the monthly national unemployment rate in June was at 9.17 per cent, while it was 10.07 per cent in urban India and 8.75 per cent in rural India. It may be noted that the opening up of more economic activities combined with the progress of the monsoon helped stabilise urban and rural employment. (Source~Wikipedia)
However, the situation in the country’s job market continues to be sticky as employment opportunities remain slim ever since the country was hit by another wave of the pandemic.
While the second wave had a milder impact on the economy was milder, it severely affected the informal sector where millions of people lost jobs. The employment rate in the country has been witnessing a recovery since June.
Moreover, there are certain features associated with Unemployment in Rural India which are stated below:
Present features of Unemployment in India
1. Unemployment rates for women are higher than those for men.
2. The incidence of unemployment among the educated is much higher (about 12%) than
overall unemployment of 9.6%.
3. There is greater unemployment in agricultural sector than in industrial and other major sectors.
4. The growth of employment per annum is only about 2%.
What are reasons of rural unemployment in India?
Unemployment wasn’t widespread in rural areas, since most people were engaged in agriculture which helped them earn a living. Despite droughts, people continue to pursue agriculture. But with the advancement of technology through industrial civilization, textile mills and others sort of factories began to grow in India.
Though it led to mass migration of people to rural areas, drought like conditions and lack of income from agriculture created huge unemployment among rural youth.
- Population Growth
With the advancement of medical technology, several serious diseases were eliminated and life span expansion as indirectly raised the rural population. India near about two lakh people are added yearly to our existing population Such increase has adversely affected the unemployment situation largely in many ways.
Primarily, the growth of the population directly added another large group to already expanding labour force, leading to the mismatch. Finally, the rapid population growth reduced the resources for capital formation for a particular project. For example, the government had to spend more on education, health, electricity, food, water etc. Thus, growth of population has created many hurdles.
- Monsoon and agriculture
Agriculture is the primary source of employment as most of the rural people are engaged directly as well as indirectly employed in agricultural operations. But, due to monsoon and climate change, agriculture in slowly becoming a seasonal activity. How ?
During the sowing and harvesting period, people are fully employed and the period between the post-harvest and before the next sowing there isn’t any work Besides, Indian farmers continue to employ unscientific methods of agriculture. As a result, the agricultural yields are poor and wastage of land and water resources. With the poor production, leading less labour, more and more people are unemployed.
- Lack of transportation facilities
India lacks transportation facilities in rural areas, owing to this reason, the villagers who aren’t engaged in agricultural related activities continue to remain unemployed. Besides, they cannot travel to places where employment is available, they are confined within the limited boundary of the village or the nearest villages.
- Problems in MNREGA
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employee Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) has generated more rural employment than any other government scheme or private initiative in the history of independent India. But the MGNREGA, has several flaws which are leading the fall the scheme.
It has created an imbalance among the landless poor and their employers (agricultural land owners, labour contractors, landlords), making it favourable towards the latter. Besides, it has raised rural incomes, it has decreased distress migration to the cities. But it indirectly reduced the numbers of the reserve army of labour, and also increased the cost of labour.
- Disappearance of traditional occupation:
In Pre- Independent India rural folk were employed mostly in cottage industries. But cottage industries have received a severe setback in the Post-Independent India. Small industries failed to compete with large scale industries. As a result cottage industries are gradually disappearing and many people are being thrown out of employment.
- Lack of occupational mobility:
Caste system is a potent factor of rural unemployment in the Indian context. It is an institution of occupational distribution that restricts the occupational mobility of the ruralites. Due to caste system an occupation in rural India is hereditary in nature.
If the number of members of a caste increases in comparison to the services demanded, the remaining population becomes unemployed.
Lack of employment policy:
Unfortunately in India there is no serious effort for manpower planning. So far as our development plan strategy is concerned, employment has not been accorded its due place. It is not linked with the development process under the assumption that economic growth itself would lead to creation of employment opportunities. But this has failed to bring integration between growth and employment. All these factors account for poverty in general and rural poverty in particular.
However, let’s understand the consequences affiliated to this:
Family disorganization because of unemployment is easy to measure. Unemployment affects the unity of interests of family members, the unity of objectives, as well as the unity of personal ambitions.
The disharmonious functioning of the members creates discord within family, which means that not only do the tensions between the unemployed husband and wife increases but conflicts between parents and children also arises.
Social disorder disorganisation caused by an employment is hard to measure. Social disorganisation is a breakdown of the social structure, or change because of which old forms of social control no longer function affectively, or a process by which social relationship between members of a group are broken or dissolved.
The activities of the unemployed also restricted and their attitude so better that in this phase of disillusionment and discouragement, they lose their desire to work in their skills may deteriorate with a resultant loss to the whole community.
But there can be solutions in order to deal with the rising issue of Unemployment, which can be done by the government in a subsequent manner.
Offering a solution to rural unemployment in India must have three dimensional solution.Firstly, adequate changes must be brought in the form of quality of Indian education. Indian government should select a committee which includes value and skill based syllabus in schools and universities.
Because almost all the syllabus taught is of no use to the industrial needs. Indian government should encourage and develop the agriculture based industries in rural areas by offering incentives, interest free loan for seasonal unemployment people.
Besides, more assistance must be offered to self- employed people in the area of cottage and small scale industries etc. These persons should be helped financially, providing raw materials and technical training.
Small scale, labour-intensive industries should be set up to provide employment to surplus rural labour force. These industries should take into account the needs and resources of the rural areas. Furthermore, there should be rural industrialization in big villages in the shape of the establishment of large-scale industries. The local labour as well as other resources should be utilized to develop these industries.
Favourable conditions for marketing agricultural produce will alleviate the problem of agricultural unemployment. The organisation of the agricultural market will increase the income of the cultivator. As a result, the problem relating to rural unemployment will be mitigated to a great extent.
