NCERT Solutions for Class 11 Economics Chapter 6: Employment – Growth, Informalisation and Other Issues (NCERT 2026–27)
These Class 11 Economics Chapter 6 solutions cover Employment: Growth, Informalisation and Other Issues from the NCERT textbook Indian Economic Development, updated for the 2026–27 session. The chapter explains who is a worker, how the worker-population ratio is measured, the participation of men and women in different sectors, the difference between self-employed, regular salaried and casual wage workers, the shift of the workforce across primary, secondary and service sectors, the meaning of jobless growth and casualisation, the informalisation of the Indian workforce, the types of unemployment, and government measures for employment generation. Below you get step-by-step answers to all 22 exercise questions (theory and estimation), plus extra practice, MCQs, Assertion–Reason and FAQs.
Class: 11Subject: EconomicsBook: Indian Economic DevelopmentChapter: 6Topic: Employment: Growth, Informalisation and Other IssuesSession: 2026–27
This chapter studies the world of work in India. A worker is anyone engaged in an economic activity that contributes to the gross national product, whether paid or self-employed. The worker-population ratio tells us what proportion of the population is actively engaged in production. The chapter examines the very different participation of men and women, and of rural and urban people, and classifies workers as self-employed, regular salaried employees and casual wage labourers. It traces the gradual shift of the workforce from the primary (agriculture) sector towards the secondary and service sectors, and highlights worrying trends — jobless growth (GDP rising faster than employment), the casualisation and informalisation of work, and weak social security. It distinguishes open, disguised and seasonal unemployment, and ends with the government’s direct and indirect efforts at employment generation, including MGNREGA.
Key Terms & Concepts
Worker: any person engaged in an economic activity (one that contributes to the gross national product), in whatever capacity — paid employees, the self-employed, and those who help main workers; those temporarily absent due to illness, festivals, etc. are also workers.
Economic activity: an activity that contributes to the gross national product (GNP).
Worker-population ratio: an indicator of the employment situation, found by dividing the total number of workers by the total population and multiplying by 100. It shows the proportion of the population actively contributing to production.
Self-employed: workers who own and operate an enterprise to earn their livelihood (e.g. a cement-shop owner, a vegetable vendor); they form the largest category of India’s workforce.
Regular salaried employees: workers engaged by an employer or enterprise and paid wages on a regular basis (e.g. a civil engineer in a construction company).
Casual wage labourers: workers casually engaged in others’ work and paid wages only for the work done (e.g. a construction worker); economists regard them as the most vulnerable category.
Formal (organised) sector: all public-sector establishments and private establishments employing 10 or more hired workers; their workers enjoy social security and stable income.
Informal (unorganised) sector: all other enterprises and workers — farmers, agricultural labourers, small enterprise owners, the self-employed without hired workers, and non-farm casual labourers; they lack regular income and social security.
Jobless growth: a situation in which the economy produces more goods and services (GDP grows) without a matching growth in employment.
Casualisation: the process of workers moving from self-employment and regular salaried jobs to casual wage work, which makes them more vulnerable.
Informalisation: the rising share of the workforce in the informal sector with limited social security.
Open unemployment: a situation in which people willing and able to work cannot find any work at all.
Disguised unemployment: a situation where more people are employed in a job than are actually required, so removing some would not reduce output (common on farms).
Seasonal unemployment: unemployment during certain seasons of the year, common in agriculture.
MGNREGA: the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, which promises 100 days of guaranteed wage employment to rural households whose adults volunteer for unskilled manual work.
Worker-Population Ratio = (Total number of workers ÷ Total population) × 100
NCERT Exercises — Full Solutions
All questions below are reproduced verbatim from the NCERT textbook’s end-of-chapter Exercises. Answers are original, written in CBSE exam-ready style; estimation questions are solved step by step.
1. Who is a worker?
ANSWERA worker is any person who is engaged in an economic activity — that is, an activity which contributes to the gross national product of the country — in whatever capacity, high or low.Workers include paid employees, the self-employed (such as a vegetable vendor or a doctor), and those who help the main workers. Persons who temporarily abstain from work due to illness, injury, bad weather, festivals or social and religious functions are also counted as workers.
2. Define worker-population ratio.
ANSWERThe worker-population ratio is an indicator used to analyse the employment situation in a country. It is the proportion of the total population that is actively engaged in the production of goods and services.It is calculated as: Worker-Population Ratio = (Total number of workers ÷ Total population) × 100. A higher ratio means greater engagement of people in economic activities.
3. Are the following workers — a beggar, a thief, a smuggler, a gambler? Why?
ANSWERNo, none of them is a worker. A worker is one who is engaged in a legal economic activity that contributes to the gross national product (GNP) of the country.A beggar does not produce any good or service; begging is not a productive economic activity, so a beggar is not a worker. A thief, smuggler and gambler are engaged in illegal activities that do not add to the GNP, so they too are not counted as workers.
4. Find the odd man out (i) owner of a saloon (ii) a cobbler (iii) a cashier in Mother Dairy or Milk Cooperative Society of your area (iv) a tuition master (v) transport operator (vi) construction worker.
ANSWEROdd man out: (iii) a cashier in Mother Dairy or Milk Cooperative Society.The cashier is a regular salaried employee — he or she works for an employer and is paid wages on a regular basis. All the others — the saloon owner, the cobbler, the tuition master, the transport operator and (when engaged independently) the construction worker as a self-supporting contractor — own and operate their own work, i.e. they are self-employed. Hence the cashier is the odd one out.
5. The newly emerging jobs are found mostly in the ______ sector (service/manufacturing).
ANSWERThe newly emerging jobs are found mostly in the service sector. With the expansion of trade, transport, communication, finance and information technology, new jobs in India are concentrated in the service (tertiary) sector.
6. An establishement with four hired workers is known as ______ (formal/informal) sector establishment.
ANSWERAn establishment with four hired workers is known as an informal sector establishment. Only public-sector units and private establishments employing 10 or more hired workers are classified as formal-sector establishments; with just four workers, it falls in the informal (unorganised) sector.
7. Raj is going to school. When he is not in school, you will find him working in his farm. Can you consider him as a worker? Why?
ANSWERYes, Raj can be considered a worker. When he works on his farm, he is engaged in an economic activity that contributes to the production of goods (and hence to the gross national product), even though he is not paid in cash.A person who helps in a family enterprise or farm is treated as a worker, regardless of whether he also studies. Therefore Raj is a worker (a self-employed/helper worker) for the time he spends working on the farm.
8. Compared to urban women, more rural women are found working. Why?
ANSWERMore rural women are found working because rural families generally have lower incomes and limited resources; women have to work to supplement the family income, mainly as farm labourers and helpers on family farms.In contrast, urban families often have higher incomes, so where men earn enough, families tend to discourage women from taking up jobs. Urban women also need specific qualifications and skills for the limited regular jobs available, whereas rural agricultural work absorbs unskilled female labour easily. Hence the participation of rural women in the workforce is higher than that of urban women.
9. Meena is a housewife. Besides taking care of household chores, she works in the cloth shop which is owned and operated by her husband. Can she be considered as a worker? Why?
ANSWERYes, Meena can be considered a worker for the time she spends in the cloth shop. By assisting in the shop owned and operated by her husband, she is engaged in an economic activity that contributes to the household income and to production, so she is a worker (a helper in a family enterprise).However, the household chores she does at home are not counted as work in national accounting because no wage is paid and they are not treated as productive in GNP — though many economists argue that such unpaid domestic work should also be recognised.
10. Find the odd man out (i) rickshaw puller who works under a rickshaw owner (ii) mason (iii) mechanic shop worker (iv) shoeshine boy.
ANSWEROdd man out: (iv) shoeshine boy.The shoeshine boy is self-employed — he owns and operates his own small work and earns his own livelihood. The rickshaw puller (working under a rickshaw owner), the mason and the mechanic-shop worker are all hired/casual wage workers who work for an employer for wages. Hence the shoeshine boy is the odd one out.
11. The following table shows distribution of workforce in India for the year 1972-73. Analyse it and give reasons for the nature of workforce distribution. You will notice that the data is pertaining to the situation in India about 50 years ago!
ANSWERThe data (in millions) given in the textbook are:
Place of Residence
Male
Female
Total
Rural
125
69
195
Urban
32
7
39
Total
157
76
234
Analysis: The total workforce was about 234 million, of which the rural workforce (195 million) was nearly 83 per cent of the total, while the urban workforce (39 million) was only about 17 per cent. Male workers (157 million) far outnumbered female workers (76 million).Reasons: (i) India was an agrarian economy with the vast majority of people living in villages and dependent on agriculture, so most workers were rural. (ii) Industrialisation and urban employment were limited, so the urban workforce was small. (iii) The participation of women, especially urban women (only 7 million), was very low because of social restrictions, lack of education and the practice of discouraging women from working where men earned enough. Hence the workforce was overwhelmingly rural and male.
12. The following table shows the population and worker population ratio for India in 1999-2000. Can you estimate the workforce (urban and total) for India?
ANSWERUsing the formula: Estimated Number of Workers = (Population × Worker-Population Ratio) ÷ 100.
Estimated urban workforce ≈ 9.61 crore and estimated total workforce ≈ 39.66 crore. (Rural + urban = 30.12 + 9.61 = 39.73 crore, the small difference from 39.66 arising from rounding of the ratios.)
13. Why are regular salaried employees more in urban areas than in rural areas?
ANSWERRegular salaried employees are more in urban areas because urban areas have a large number of factories, shops, offices and enterprises that need workers on a continuous, regular basis, creating stable salaried jobs.Urban workers are also generally better educated and more skilled, which suits regular employment. In rural areas, by contrast, most people depend on agriculture, which is seasonal and largely self-employed (farmers cultivating their own land), so opportunities for regular salaried work are far fewer.
14. Why are less women found in regular salaried employment?
ANSWERFewer women are found in regular salaried employment because regular jobs usually require higher education, technical skills and continuous availability, and many women lack access to such education and training.In addition, social and family responsibilities (household work and child care), restrictions on women working away from home, and the discouragement of women from taking jobs where men earn enough, all limit their entry into regular salaried work. Much of women’s work is therefore unpaid family work or casual labour rather than regular salaried employment.
15. Analyse the recent trends in sectoral distribution of workforce in India.
ANSWERThe sectoral distribution of the workforce shows a clear shift from farm work to non-farm work. The primary sector (agriculture and allied activities) remains the largest employer but its share has fallen sharply — from about 74 per cent in 1972-73 to about 46 per cent in 2023-24.The secondary sector (manufacturing, construction, etc.) has grown from about 11 per cent to about 24 per cent, and the service (tertiary) sector from about 15 per cent to about 30 per cent.Trend: the workforce is gradually moving out of agriculture into industry and, even more, into services. This is a sign of structural change in the economy, although agriculture still employs the single largest share of workers, especially in rural areas and among women.
16. Compared to the 1970s, there has hardly been any change in the distribution of workforce across various industries. Comment.
ANSWERThis statement is only partly true. It is true in the sense that the primary sector still employs the largest share of the workforce, so agriculture has not lost its position as the chief employer.However, the statement is largely incorrect, because there has in fact been a substantial change: the primary sector’s share has fallen from about 74 per cent in 1972-73 to about 46 per cent, while the secondary sector rose from about 11 to 24 per cent and the service sector from about 15 to 30 per cent. Thus the workforce has shifted significantly from farm to non-farm work, even though the pace is slower than in developed economies. Hence the distribution has changed appreciably, not negligibly.
17. Do you think that during 1950-2010 employment generated in the country is commensurate with the growth of GDP in India? How?
ANSWERNo, employment generation during 1950–2010 was not commensurate with the growth of GDP. During this period India’s GDP grew positively and at a higher rate than employment, while employment grew at a rate of not more than about 2 per cent.Moreover, in the late 1990s the growth of employment started declining and a widening gap appeared between the growth of GDP and the growth of employment. This means the economy was able to produce more goods and services without generating proportionate jobs — a situation scholars call jobless growth. So output rose much faster than employment.
18. Is it necessary to generate employment in the formal sector rather than in the informal sector? Why?
ANSWERYes, it is desirable to generate more employment in the formal sector. Formal-sector workers enjoy regular income, social security benefits (provident fund, gratuity, pension, maternity benefits), better and stable working conditions and the right to form trade unions to protect their interests.Informal-sector workers, by contrast, get no regular income, little or no social security, no protection or regulation, and often work with outdated technology in poor conditions. Generating formal employment therefore improves the quality of employment, reduces vulnerability and exploitation, and raises workers’ standard of living. Hence creating formal-sector jobs is necessary for inclusive and decent growth.
19. Victor is able to get work only for two hours in a day. Rest of the day, he is looking for work. Is he unemployed? Why? What kind of jobs could persons like Victor be doing?
ANSWERNo, Victor is not considered unemployed by the NSO definition. An unemployed person is defined as one who is not able to get employment of even one hour in half a day. Since Victor gets work for two hours in a day, he is regarded as employed (though only partly).Victor is, however, underemployed, as he is not fully employed and continues to look for more work. Persons like Victor are usually casual wage labourers doing irregular jobs such as construction work, loading and unloading, daily-wage farm labour, or odd jobs that provide work only for a few hours.
20. You are residing in a village. If you are asked to advice the village panchayat, what kinds of activities would you suggest for the improvement of your village which would also generate employment.
ANSWERI would suggest activities that build useful community assets while creating local employment, such as:(i) Construction of rural infrastructure — laying village roads, building school and hospital buildings, check dams, and houses and sanitation for the poor.(ii) Water and land development — rainwater harvesting, de-silting of tanks and ponds, irrigation channels, and development of wastelands and degraded lands.(iii) Allied and small-scale activities — dairy, poultry, fisheries, bee-keeping, handicrafts and cottage industries, and food-processing units.(iv) Skill and welfare measures — training centres, primary health and education, and the implementation of MGNREGA to guarantee 100 days of wage employment. These activities improve the village and generate employment for local people simultaneously.
21. Who is a casual wage labourer?
ANSWERA casual wage labourer is a worker who is casually engaged in the work of others (such as in farms, construction sites or factories) and gets a remuneration only for the work done, without any job security or social security benefits.Such workers are not hired on a regular basis; they are employed as and when work is available, for example agricultural labourers and construction workers. Economists regard them as the most vulnerable among the three categories of workers.
22. How will you know whether a worker is working in the informal sector?
ANSWERA worker is working in the informal (unorganised) sector if he or she is not employed in a public-sector establishment or in a private establishment that employs 10 or more hired workers.Informal-sector workers typically: get no regular income and no social security benefits (provident fund, pension, gratuity); have no protection or regulation from the government; can be dismissed without compensation; work with outdated technology; and their enterprises maintain no proper accounts. They include farmers, agricultural labourers, owners and workers of small enterprises, the self-employed without hired workers, and non-farm casual labourers. The presence of these features tells us a worker belongs to the informal sector.
Note: The textbook also lists Suggested Additional Activities (a worker-population survey, regional employment reports, an Employment News study, and field assessments of government works). These are project-based activities for classroom or fieldwork and do not have single fixed answers.
Extra Practice Questions
Short Answer Type Questions
Q1. What is meant by an economic activity?
ANSWERAn economic activity is any activity that contributes to the gross national product (GNP) of the country — that is, the production of goods and services that have a money value. Working on a farm, in a factory, a bank or a shop, and self-employment such as running a small business, are all economic activities, while begging or illegal acts are not.
Q2. Distinguish between self-employed and hired workers.
ANSWERSelf-employed workers own and operate their own enterprise to earn a living (e.g. a shop owner or a vegetable vendor) and bear the risks themselves. Hired workers work for an employer for wages and are of two kinds — regular salaried employees (paid regularly) and casual wage labourers (paid only for the work done). Self-employment is the largest category in India.
Q3. What is disguised unemployment? Give an example.
ANSWERDisguised unemployment is a situation in which more workers are employed in a job than are actually needed, so that removing some of them would not reduce output. For example, if a four-acre farm needs only two workers but five family members work on it, three of them are disguisedly unemployed. It is common in Indian agriculture.
Q4. What is jobless growth?
ANSWERJobless growth is the phenomenon in which an economy is able to produce more goods and services (its GDP grows) without generating a proportionate increase in employment. India experienced this especially from the late 1990s, when GDP grew faster than employment and a widening gap appeared between the two.
Q5. What is MGNREGA?
ANSWERMGNREGA is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005. It promises 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. It is one of the major direct measures taken by the government to generate employment in rural areas.
Long Answer Type Questions
Q1. Explain the three categories of workers based on their employment status, with examples.
ANSWEROn the basis of employment status, workers are classified into three categories. (i) Self-employed workers own and operate an enterprise to earn their livelihood — for example a cement-shop owner, a vegetable vendor, or a doctor in private practice; they form the largest group, accounting for more than half of India’s workforce. (ii) Regular salaried employees are engaged by an employer or enterprise and paid wages on a regular basis — for example a civil engineer in a construction company or a bank clerk; they enjoy relatively stable income, and most formal-sector workers belong here. (iii) Casual wage labourers are casually engaged in others’ work and paid only for the work done — for example a construction worker or an agricultural labourer; they have no job or social security and are the most vulnerable. Knowing a worker’s status helps us judge the quality of employment in the country.
Q2. Distinguish between the formal and informal sectors and explain why informalisation is a concern.
ANSWERThe formal (organised) sector includes all public-sector establishments and private establishments employing 10 or more hired workers; its workers get regular income, social security (provident fund, pension, gratuity, maternity benefits), stable working conditions, and the right to form trade unions. The informal (unorganised) sector includes all other enterprises and workers — farmers, agricultural labourers, small-enterprise owners, the self-employed without hired workers, and non-farm casual labourers; they get no regular income, little or no social security, no protection or regulation, and often use outdated technology. Informalisation — the rising share of the workforce in the informal sector — is a concern because it means the new jobs being created are mostly casual and insecure, leaving workers vulnerable to poverty, exploitation and sudden loss of livelihood (as seen in the Ahmedabad textile-mill closures). It lowers the overall quality of employment and weakens social security in the economy.
Q3. Describe the different types of unemployment found in India and how the government tries to generate employment.
ANSWERIndia experiences several types of unemployment. Open unemployment exists when people willing and able to work cannot find any work at all. Disguised unemployment occurs when more people work in a job than are needed (common on farms, where removing some workers would not reduce output). Seasonal unemployment arises when work is available only in certain seasons, as in agriculture, leaving people idle for the rest of the year. To tackle unemployment, the government generates employment in two ways. Through direct measures it employs people in various government departments, public-sector industries, hotels and transport companies. Through indirect measures, the increased output of government enterprises raises the output and employment of private firms that depend on them. The government also runs employment-generation and poverty-alleviation programmes — such as MGNREGA (100 days of guaranteed rural wage employment), the building of roads, houses and community assets, and the development of wastelands — which provide both employment and basic services like health, education and drinking water.
MCQs & Assertion–Reason
1. A worker is a person who is engaged in:
(a) any activity at home (b) an economic activity contributing to GNP (c) only paid employment (d) only farm work
2. The worker-population ratio is obtained by:
(a) total workers ÷ total population × 100 (b) total population ÷ total workers × 100 (c) workers ÷ unemployed × 100 (d) GDP ÷ workers
3. A cement-shop owner who runs his own shop is a:
For each Assertion–Reason question, choose: (A) Both true and the Reason correctly explains the Assertion; (B) Both true but the Reason is not the correct explanation; (C) Assertion true, Reason false; (D) Assertion false, Reason true.
A-R 1. Assertion: The self-employed are the largest category of workers in India.
Reason: A large number of Indians own and operate small enterprises and family farms.
A-R 2. Assertion: Casual wage labourers are the most secure category of workers.
Reason: Casual wage labourers are paid only for the work done and have no job or social security.
A-R 3. Assertion: India has experienced jobless growth.
Reason: GDP has grown faster than employment, with a widening gap between the two since the late 1990s.
A-R 4. Assertion: Regular salaried employees are more numerous in urban areas than in rural areas.
Reason: Urban areas have many factories, shops and offices that need workers on a regular basis.
A-R 5. Assertion: Informal-sector workers enjoy strong social security benefits.
Reason: All establishments employing 10 or more hired workers belong to the informal sector.
Answer key: 1-(A), 2-(D), 3-(A), 4-(A), 5-(D).
Exam Tips & Common Mistakes
How to score full marks in this chapter
Memorise the exact definitions — worker, economic activity, worker-population ratio (with its formula), and the three categories of workers (self-employed, regular salaried, casual wage). For estimation questions (Q12), always write the formula (Population × WPR) ÷ 100 and show your working with units (crore/million). Keep ready the three types of unemployment — open, disguised, seasonal — with one example each, and the formal/informal distinction (the 10-worker rule). Use the textbook’s key trends (primary share falling from ~74% to ~46%, jobless growth, casualisation, the Ahmedabad caselet, MGNREGA) to add value in long answers.
Common mistakes to avoid
Calling a beggar, thief or smuggler a “worker” — only legal, GNP-contributing activities count.
Confusing the formula — worker-population ratio is workers ÷ population × 100, not the reverse.
Treating an establishment with fewer than 10 hired workers as formal — it is informal.
Mixing up disguised (too many workers) with seasonal (idle in some seasons) and open (no work at all) unemployment.
Saying there has been “no change” in workforce distribution — the primary share has fallen sharply over five decades.
Forgetting that Victor (2 hours of work a day) is employed/underemployed, not unemployed (the “one hour in half a day” rule).
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Chapter 6 of Class 11 Economics (Indian Economic Development) about?
Chapter 6, Employment: Growth, Informalisation and Other Issues, explains who a worker is, the worker-population ratio, the participation of men and women, the three categories of workers (self-employed, regular salaried and casual wage), the shift of the workforce across sectors, jobless growth, casualisation and informalisation, the types of unemployment, and government measures for employment generation such as MGNREGA.
How is the worker-population ratio calculated?
The worker-population ratio is calculated by dividing the total number of workers by the total population and multiplying by 100. It shows the proportion of the population that is actively engaged in the production of goods and services; a higher ratio means greater engagement of people in economic activities.
What is the difference between the formal and informal sectors?
The formal (organised) sector includes all public-sector establishments and private establishments employing 10 or more hired workers, whose workers enjoy regular income and social security. The informal (unorganised) sector includes all other enterprises and workers — farmers, casual labourers, small-enterprise owners and the self-employed without hired workers — who lack regular income and social security.
