| Place of Residence | Workforce (in million) | ||
| Male | Female | Total | |
| Rural Urban | 125 32 | 69 7 | 195 39 |
Answer:
From the given table, following points can be noticed about the nature of workforce distribution
(i) Majority of the workforce was working in the rural areas in India in the year 1972-73. The total workforce was 234 million out of which 195 million workers were from rural areas and 39 million from the urban areas. Thus, 83% of the total workforce was rural as compared to 17% of the urban workforce. The reason for this was that a majority of population was living in rural areas and were engaged in agricultural and allied sectors, though many of them were disguisedly unemployed.
(ii) The rural workforce comprises of 64% of the mate workforce and 36% of female workforce. On the other hand, the urban workforce comprises of about 82% of male workforce and 18% of female workforce. This shows that participation of males in both rural as well as urban areas is higher than that of the females because of lack of opportunities available to women for acquiring education and also the social structure and family norms which did not encourage women to work. Women were therefore confined to household work only.
(iii) Another feature of workforce distribution is the difference between urban female work force and rural female workforce. Females in the rural areas formed 36% of the workforce, whereas, the females in the urban areas formed only 18% of the workforce. This may be attributed to the fact that where men are able to earn high incomes, families discourage female members from taking up jobs. Earnings of urban male workers are generally higher than rural males and so the urban families do not want females to work.
Thus, it can be concluded by analysing the above table that Indian Economy suffered from disguised unemployment in rural areas and low female participation rate in the workforce 30 years ago.
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