Employment and Unemployment Situation

Employment and Unemployment Situation among Major Religious Groups in India, 2004-05

“Employment and Unemployment Situation among Major Religious Groups in India, 2004–2005”- Report No.521 based on the data of the seventh quinquennial survey of employment and unemployment in India carried out by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India, as part of the 61^st round of the NSS, has been released. This report is the fifth in the series of seven reports to be brought out on the basis of employment and unemployment data of the NSS 61^st round. In this survey, among many other details, information on religion was collected as part of the household characteristics. The major religious groups distinguished in the survey included Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Budddhists and Zoroastrians. It is important to note that the religion of the head of the household was considered as the religion of all the household members irrespective of the actual religion practiced by individual members. Since the sample sizes for the religious groups other than Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs were either very small, even at all India level or were concentrated in only a few States / U.Ts, results in this report have been presented only for these major religious groups.

All States / Union Territories were covered by the survey except some interior areas of Nagaland, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, and Ladakh and Kargil districts of Jammu & Kashmir. This survey was spread over a sample of 7999 villages and 4602 urban blocks covering 1,24,680 sample households (79306 in the rural areas and 45374 in the urban areas). Out of the 1,24,680 households surveyed at the national level, households reporting religion as Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Sikhism were 95066, 14785, 8575 and 3037 respectively. The number of households surveyed for other religions i.e., those reporting their religion, as Jainism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism or others, together, was 3,217 at the all-India level.

Some of the important findings of the survey contained in this report are given below:

In rural areas, about 84 per cent of households having 83 per cent of population followed Hinduism whereas 10 per cent of households followed Islam with about 12 per cent of population. Further, about 2 per cent of households and population followed Christianity. In urban areas, the percentage of households and population were about 80 and 77 respectively for Hinduism, 13 and 16 for Islam and 3 and 3 for Christianity. Even after excluding the state of Jammu and Kashmir, having different geographical coverage in different NSS rounds, the proportion of persons by major religious groups virtually remained unchanged.

· In the rural areas, ‘self-employment’ was the mainstay for all the religious groups. About 37 per cent of Hindu households were dependent on ‘self-employment in agriculture’. The corresponding proportion was 35 per cent for the Christians and 26 per cent for the Muslims. The proportions of households depending on ‘self-employment in non-agriculture’ were 14 per cent for the Hindus, 28 per cent for the Muslims and 15 per cent for the Christians. In the case of ‘rural labour’ households, the proportions varied from 32 per cent (Muslims) to 37 per cent (Hindus). In urban India, the proportion of Hindu households depending on ‘self-employment’, ‘regular wage/salary’ and ‘casual labour’ were 36 per cent, 43 per cent and 12 per cent respectively, whereas the corresponding shares for the Muslims were 49 per cent, 30 per cent and 14 per cent respectively and for the Christians 27 per cent, 47 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.

The Christians had the lowest illiteracy rate both for rural (20 per cent for males and 31 per cent for females) and urban areas (6 per cent for males and 11 per cent for females). Except for rural females, the proportion of literates among the Hindus was higher than that among the Muslims. Among the males in the rural areas, the literacy rates for Hindus and Muslims were 68 per cent and 63 per cent respectively. In case of urban males, the literacy rates for Hindus and Muslims were 89 per cent and 77 per cent respectively. Among the females in the urban areas, the literacy rates for Hindus and Muslims were 73 per cent and 60 per cent respectively. Among the rural females, the illiteracy rates were almost equal among the Hindus and the Muslims (59 per cent).

In the rural areas, Worker Population Ratio (WPR) among the males was highest among Christians (56 per cent) followed by Hindus (55 per cent). The corresponding figure for Muslims was lower (50 per cent). As in the case of males, WPR for females among Christians (36 per cent) and Hindus (34 per cent) was much higher than that among Muslims (18 per cent). In urban India, the WPR among the males was the highest among Hindus (56 per cent) followed by Muslims (53 per cent) and the Christians (51 per cent). The WPR for Christian women (24 per cent) was much higher than that among Hindu (17 per cent) and Muslim women (12 per cent).

For the rural males in the age group 15 years and above, WPR in the educational level secondary and above was the highest among the Hindus (76 per cent) followed by the Christians (72 per cent) and the Muslims (67 per cent). However in urban areas, it was equal (71 per cent) among Muslims and Hindus and lower (64 per cent) among Christians. For the rural females in the same age group with same education level, however, the rates were highest among the Christians (37 per cent) followed by Hindus (30 per cent) and Muslims (18 per cent). Similar pattern was also observed among urban females in the same age group.

More than half of the workers in the rural areas were self-employed, the proportion being the highest among the Muslim workers for both males (60 per cent) and females (75 per cent). In the urban areas also, the same pattern is observed. The proportion of regular wage/salaried workers was highest among Christians in both rural and urban areas among both males and females. The proportion of casual labourers was highest among Hindus for females in both rural (34 per cent) and urban (18 per cent) areas.

In rural areas, the unemployment rates (URs) were higher among the Christians (4.4 per cent) as compared to those among the Hindus (1.5 per cent) or the Muslims (2.3 per cent). In the urban areas also same pattern was observed. However, the URs in urban areas were more or less same for Hindu and Muslims (4 per cent). Further URs for females were generally higher in all major religious groups as compared to males in both rural and urban areas. The UR was highest (14 per cent) among the urban Christian women.