INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
country for the first time in five years.
Among all religious minorities, the unemployment rate was the highest among Sikhs, followed by
Christians, according to data from the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey
The rate of joblessness among Sikhs increased from 5.1 per cent in 2022-23 to 5.8 per cent in 2023-24.Click here to connect with us on
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While the unemployment rate among Muslims saw the sharpest increase, from 2.4 per cent to 3.2 per cent in the same period, it rose
marginally among Christians
declined for all religious segments in 2023-24 compared to the pre-Covid year of 2019-20
As in the pre-Covid year, Muslims had the lowest unemployment rate during 2023-24 as well.High poverty despite high unemployment
At the
outset, that may seem perplexing since the poverty rate in Muslims is much higher than others, as pointed out by the Rajinder Sachar
Committee in the early part of this century
post-Sachar Evaluation Committee, says Muslim poverty is much higher than the poverty among Hindus, particularly when one excludes the
scheduled caste population.
The Sachar Committee had said that Muslims faced fairly high levels of poverty
together as the worst off, at 35 per cent, followed by Muslims at 31 per cent.
As to why unemployment rate was the highest among Sikhs and
vulnerability of jobs after Covid could be at play
Emeritus at LJ University, Ahmedabad, says the existence of disguised unemployment lowers the unemployment rate for all communities in rural
For instance, Muslims in urban areas have the least rate of joblessness among all religious segments.
Explaining the reasons behind this,
Muslims on the whole was only slightly better than those of scheduled castes and tribes, though slightly worse in urban areas
Minorities have a higher rate of unemployment in the rural areas than the all-India level.
However, when it comes to unemployment among
women in urban areas, Muslims have a lower rate than Hindus
Kundu attributes this to a large number of Muslim women not seeking employment
he says.Reluctant job seekers
This hesitancy in job search is also reflected in the lower labour force participation rates (LFPR), which is
the proportion of the population seeking employment
Since 2017-18, Muslims and Sikhs have had a lower LFPR compared to the national average.
However, the LFPR across religions has risen by
more than 8 percentage points between 2017-18 and 2023-24
But the growth was less than 8 percentage points for only Muslims.
Most of those employed among Muslims are self-employed and a smaller
proportion of them are in regular jobs
Here, household help are not taken into account.
In comparison, a larger proportion of Christians and Sikhs are in salaried jobs even
though most of them here too are self-employed
The least proportion of employed are casual workers among Christians and Sikhs.
This is true even for Hindus
Christians and Sikhs have a higher proportion of workers in this category when compared to Hindus
communities over the five years ended 2023-24
Muslims saw the steepest fall, while Sikhs witnessed the least decline.
About 21.5 per cent of the workers belonging to the Muslim
community had salaried employment in 2019-20, but their share fell to 18 per cent in 2023-24, showing a 3.5 percentage point decline
In the
case of Christians, 27.6 per cent of workers had regular jobs in 2023-24 compared to 29.9 per cent in 2019-20, down by 2.3 percentage
points.
Regular workers in the Sikh community saw a 0.7 percentage point decline
As many as 26.7 per cent workers in the community had wage employment in 2023-24, down from 27.4 per cent in 2019-20.
In comparison, Hindus
saw the least deterioration in the quality of employment
As many as 21.9 per cent workers had regular salaried jobs in 2023-24, down by 0.8 percentage points from 22.7 per cent in
2019-20.
Overall, a little over a fifth of workers had regular jobs
The share of those in wage-salaried employment declined to 21.7 per cent in 2023-24 from 22.9 per cent in 2019-20.Link to literacy
There
may be a broad link between the trend cited above and literacy rates
While literacy rates rose across communities over a five-year period, Muslims had the lowest rates of literacy in 2019-20 as well as in
Hindus witnessed the least proportion of increase in literacy rates in this period.
The literacy rate among Muslims was up by 2.6
percentage points from 75 per cent in 2019-20 to 77.6 per cent in 2023-24
There were 79.6 per cent literate Hindus in 2023-24, up by 1.9 percentage points compared to 77.7 per cent five years ago
Meanwhile, literacy among Sikhs increased by 3.7 percentage points from 79.1 per cent in 2019-20 to 82.8 per cent in 2023-24.
Christians
saw literacy rate rise to 87.6 per cent from 84.3 per cent over this period, registering a 3.3 percentage point increase.
Overall, literacy
rate was up from 77.6 per cent in 2019-20 by 2.1 percentage points to 79.7 per cent in 2023-24.
