Urbanisation in a decade of near jobless growth

Abstract

Unlike other countries at similar levels of development, the transition of the workforce out of agriculture in India is incomplete. While we have a fair understanding of developments at the national and state levels, due to data limitations, very little is known about the processes at play and the consequent labour market outcomes across the size class of villages and towns of India. In this chapter, we outline the stages in the rural non-farm employment transition since this has implications for the rate of urbanisation and the changes in key workforce indicators at the national level in the inter-censal period 2001–11. We, then, provide estimates of a few key indicators of the labour market across size class of cities. Finally we expose the level of job concentration across 21 broad sections of industry at the sub-national level. From the analysis it emerges that initiatives aimed at the expansion of non-farm employment need to begin with an improved understanding of the conduciveness of the urban employment pattern in the nearby areas. However, given the dispersed nature of census towns, an alternative view would be that small towns and villages, irrespective of whether they are in the vicinity of an urban agglomeration or not, could be engines of growth.