This MCQ module is based on: Unemployment, Govt Schemes & Exercises
TOPIC 17 OF 23
Unemployment, Govt Schemes & Exercises
🎓 Class 11
Economics
CBSE
Theory
Ch 6 — Employment: Growth, Informalisation
⏱ ~25 min
🌐 Language: [gtranslate]
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6.9 Unemployment — Definitions, Types and Measurement
Walk past a labour chowk in any Indian city in the early morning. Men and women stand shoulder-to-shoulder, waiting for a contractor to pick them for the day's work. Some scan newspapers for vacancies; others go from one office to another with a folder of bio-data. Many in rural areas simply stay home when there is no work, neither registered nor counted. Each of these forms a different shade of unemployment?.
📘 NCERT Definition — Unemployment (NSO)
The National Statistical Office (previously known as the National Sample Survey Organisation) defines unemployment as a situation in which all those who, owing to lack of work, are not working but either seek work through employment exchanges, intermediaries, friends or relatives, or by making applications to prospective employers, or express their willingness or availability for work under the prevailing conditions of work and remuneration.Economists also define an unemployed person as one who is not able to get employment of even one hour in half a day.
Sources of Data on Unemployment
NCERT lists four major sources from which data on unemployment is collected in India:
Census of India
Decennial population census, which records the activity status of every individual.
NSO Reports
Reports of the Employment and Unemployment Situation, conducted by the National Statistical Office.
Periodic Labour Force Survey
Annual reports of the PLFS — the most current source for employment trends.
Employment Exchanges
Directorate General of Employment and Training records of registration with employment exchanges.
Different sources produce different estimates because they use different reference periods. The Usual Status (US) approach asks whether the person was employed for the major part of the last 365 days; the Current Weekly Status (CWS) asks about the previous seven days; and the Current Daily Status (CDS) measures unemployment at the level of half-days. CDS gives the most rigorous picture because it captures even those who got a few hours of work in a week.
Types of Unemployment in India
Open Unemployment
The classical, easily-visible form. The person has no work at all, is willing to work at the prevailing wage, and is actively searching. The opening paragraph of NCERT's section on unemployment — workers gathering at chowks, scanning newspapers, distributing bio-data — describes this form. Open unemployment is largely an urban phenomenon.
Disguised Unemployment
NCERT's most carefully explained category. Suppose a farmer has four acres of land. He actually needs only two workers and himself for all farm operations in a year, but he employs five workers along with his wife and children. The extra labourers contribute nothing to total output — their marginal product is zero. This situation is called disguised unemployment?. NCERT cites a study from the late 1950s which showed that about one-third of agriculture workers in India were disguisedly unemployed. It is the common form of rural unemployment.
Seasonal Unemployment
Many people migrate to a city, take up a job, stay for a few months, then return to their village as soon as the rainy season begins. Why? Because work in agriculture is seasonal — there is no employment in the village for all twelve months. When farms have nothing to offer, people travel to urban areas; when sowing or harvesting begins, they return. This form of unemployment is called seasonal unemployment? and is also a common form in India.
Frictional & Structural Unemployment
Two further types are recognised by economists, even though NCERT does not give them separate sub-headings. Frictional unemployment? is the short, unavoidable spell between leaving one job and finding the next; it exists even in a healthy economy. Structural unemployment arises when a worker's skills do not match the jobs that are actually available — for example, a hand-loom weaver displaced by power-looms, or a typist replaced by digital data entry — and lasts until retraining occurs.
🧠 Key Insight
NCERT states that in India, people cannot remain completely unemployed for very long because their desperate economic condition would not allow them to be so. They are forced to accept jobs that nobody else would do — unpleasant or even dangerous work in unclean or unhealthy surroundings. This is why open unemployment in India looks low on paper but the real burden lies in under-employment and poor-quality work.
6.10 Government and Employment Generation — From NREP to MGNREGA
Since Independence, the Union and State governments have played an important role in generating employment. NCERT classifies their efforts into two broad categories:
Direct Employment
Government employs people in its departments, hotels, transport companies, public-sector industries — paying salaries directly to workers.
Indirect Employment
When government enterprises increase output (say a steel company), private firms that buy their output also expand and hire more — multiplying jobs across the economy.
NCERT then explains that many programmes implemented by governments are aimed at alleviating poverty through employment generation. They are also called employment generation programmes. They aim at providing not just jobs but also services in primary health, primary education, rural drinking water, nutrition, asset-purchase assistance, community-asset creation, housing, sanitation, rural roads, and development of wastelands and degraded lands.
Major Government Schemes for Employment Generation
| Scheme | Year | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| National Rural Employment Programme (NREP) | 1980 | Wage-employment for rural poor through community-asset creation. |
| Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme (RLEGP) | 1983 | Guaranteed employment for landless rural labourers. |
| Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) | 1989 | Merger of NREP & RLEGP — wage employment + village infrastructure. |
| Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) | 1999 | Self-employment of rural poor through Self-Help Groups and bank credit. |
| Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SGRY) | 2001 | Wage employment + food security in rural areas. |
| MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) | 2005 | 100 days of guaranteed wage employment per rural household for unskilled manual work — a legal right. |
| Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana (PMRY) | 1993 | Self-employment for educated unemployed youth in industry, services and business. |
| Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) | 2008 | Credit-linked subsidy programme for new micro-enterprises. |
| Skill India Mission | 2015 | Train millions of youth in market-relevant skills (PMKVY). |
| Make in India | 2014 | Boost manufacturing share and absorb surplus farm labour. |
| Stand-up India | 2016 | Bank loans (₹10 lakh – ₹1 crore) for SC/ST and women entrepreneurs. |
| PM Mudra Yojana | 2015 | Collateral-free loans (Shishu/Kishore/Tarun) to small non-corporate businesses. |
📘 NCERT Anchor — MGNREGA 2005
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 promises 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. The scheme based on this Act is one of the many measures the government has implemented to generate employment for those who need jobs in rural areas.
Critical Evaluation of Employment Programmes
Employment-generation programmes have unquestionably improved livelihoods, but they have also been criticised on several counts. NCERT itself, in the conclusion, points to the larger structural problem — rapid GDP growth without simultaneous job growth.
Strengths
MGNREGA gave wage-floor support; strengthened rural purchasing power; built durable assets (ponds, roads, wells); empowered women (~55% of MGNREGA workdays).
Weaknesses
Wage delays; leakages in payments; corruption in muster rolls; "asset" creation often of poor quality; 100-day cap is a ceiling, not a floor.
Skill mismatch
Skill India targets youth, but placement rates remain modest; many trainees never enter regular salaried jobs.
Outsourcing & Gig Work
NCERT notes that big firms now close specialist departments and outsource tasks (legal, IT, customer service) to small enterprises — even abroad. The home is becoming the workplace, but with limited social security.
⚠️ NCERT Conclusion
There has been a change in the structure of the workforce in India. Newly-emerging jobs are found mostly in the service sector. The expansion of services and high technology now permits efficient small-scale and individual enterprises to coexist with multinationals. Outsourcing has become common: firms close specialist departments (legal, programming, customer service) and hand over piecemeal jobs to small enterprises, even in other countries. As a result, the traditional notion of the modern factory or office has changed; for many, the home has become the workplace. All of this has not gone in favour of the individual worker — employment has become more informal with only limited social security. Without simultaneous increase in employment, rapid GDP growth has forced the government to take initiatives in rural-area employment generation.
Activity 6.7 — Advise the Village Panchayat (Work These Out)
NCERT asks: you are residing in a village. If you are asked to advise the village panchayat, what kinds of activities would you suggest for the improvement of the village which would also generate employment?
- Water & soil: watershed development, check dams, farm-pond construction, recharge wells — eligible under MGNREGA.
- Roads & transport: village-feeder roads, all-weather lanes connecting hamlets to the mandi.
- Allied agriculture: dairy cooperatives, poultry units, fisheries in tanks, beekeeping, horticulture nurseries.
- Non-farm: handicrafts, food-processing units (papad, pickle, jaggery), tailoring, repair shops — backed by Mudra/PMEGP loans.
- Social infrastructure: anganwadi buildings, primary-health sub-centres, school toilets, sanitation work.
- Skill training: link youth to PMKVY/Skill-India and women to SHGs under SGSY/NRLM.
📖 Summary — Key Takeaways from Chapter 6
NCERT Recap
- All those engaged in economic activities and contributing to Gross National Product are workers.
- About two-fifths of India's population is engaged in economic activity (Worker-Population Ratio ≈ 41 per 100, 2023–24).
- Men — and especially rural men — form the major section of the workforce.
- The majority of Indian workers are self-employed (~58%); casual wage labourers (~20%) and regular salaried (~22%) together form less than half.
- About three-fifths of rural workers (~60%) still depend on agriculture and allied activities for livelihood; the all-India primary-sector share is about 46%.
- The growth of employment has decelerated in recent years — the phenomenon of jobless growth.
- In the post-reform period, new jobs have come mostly in the service sector; most are in the informal sector and casual in nature.
- The government is the major formal-sector employer in the country.
- Disguised unemployment is the most common form of unemployment in rural India; seasonal unemployment and open unemployment are also widespread.
- The structure of India's workforce has changed substantially over five decades — primary share down, services up, casualisation followed by some recent regular-salaried recovery.
- Through schemes from NREP and JRY to MGNREGA, PMEGP, Skill India, Make in India, Stand-up India and Mudra, the government generates employment directly and indirectly.
🔑 Key Terms to Remember
WorkforcePeople engaged in economic activities at a given time. India's workforce ≈ 545 million (2022–23).
Worker-Population Ratio(Total workers ÷ Total population) × 100. India ≈ 41 per 100 (2023–24).
Formal SectorPublic-sector + private firms with ≥ 10 hired workers. ≈ 11% of Indian workforce.
Informal SectorAll other enterprises and their workers — no social security, ≈ 89% of workforce.
Self-EmployedWorkers who own & operate their enterprise. ≈ 58% of India's workforce.
Casual Wage LabourerWorkers paid only for the work done that day. ≈ 20% of workforce; most vulnerable.
Regular SalariedWorkers paid wages on a regular basis. ≈ 22% of workforce.
Jobless GrowthGDP rises without proportionate rise in employment.
CasualisationMovement from self-employment / regular jobs into casual wage work.
FeminisationRising share of women in the workforce — but often in low-paid casual / informal jobs.
MGNREGA 2005Legal guarantee of 100 days of wage employment per rural household.
Disguised UnemploymentMore workers on a farm than needed; marginal product of extra labour = 0.
Frictional UnemploymentShort job-search period between two jobs.
Seasonal UnemploymentNo work in lean farm months — workers migrate temporarily.
NSSO / NSONational Sample Survey Organisation (now NSO) — major source of employment data.
Structural ChangeLong-run shift of workers from primary to secondary and tertiary sectors.
📝 NCERT Exercises — Full Model Answers
Q1. Who is a worker?
A worker is any person engaged in an economic activity — i.e., an activity that contributes to the country's Gross National Product. This includes paid employees, the self-employed, and even helpers of main workers. Workers are still counted as workers when they are temporarily absent due to illness, injury, weather, festivals or social functions.
Q2. Define worker-population ratio.
The Worker-Population Ratio (WPR) is an indicator equal to (Total Number of Workers ÷ Total Population) × 100. It tells us the proportion of the population actively engaged in producing goods and services. A higher WPR means greater engagement of the population in economic activity. India's WPR for 2023–24 stands at about 43.7 per 100 (rural 45.6, urban 38.9).
Q3. Are the following workers — a beggar, a thief, a smuggler, a gambler? Why?
No. According to NCERT, a worker is a person engaged in an economic activity — one that legally contributes to the Gross National Product. A beggar produces nothing; a thief, smuggler and gambler engage in illegal activities that are not part of the country's national income accounts. Hence none of them is counted as a worker.
Q4. Find the odd man out: (i) owner of a saloon (ii) a cobbler (iii) a cashier in Mother Dairy or a milk cooperative society (iv) a tuition master (v) transport operator (vi) construction worker.
Odd one out: (iii) Cashier in Mother Dairy / milk cooperative. All the others — saloon owner, cobbler, tuition master, transport operator and construction worker — are self-employed or casual workers. Only the cashier is a regular salaried employee paid by an organised establishment. (Note: the construction worker is also distinguishable as a casual labourer; either answer is accepted as long as the reasoning is given.)
Q5. The newly emerging jobs are found mostly in the ______ sector (service / manufacturing).
Service sector. NCERT records that newly-emerging jobs are found mostly in the service sector — IT, banking, finance, transport, retail, hospitality and platform-based gig work.
Q6. An establishment with four hired workers is known as ______ (formal / informal) sector establishment.
Informal sector establishment. The NCERT formal-sector threshold requires 10 or more hired workers in a private enterprise (or any public-sector establishment). With only four hired workers, the unit is by definition informal.
Q7. Raj is going to school. When he is not in school, you will find him working on his farm. Can you consider him a worker? Why?
Yes, Raj is a worker. NCERT defines a worker as any person engaged in an economic activity. Working on the family farm — even part-time — produces foodgrains and raw materials that contribute to GNP. Whether Raj is paid in cash or not is irrelevant: helpers of main workers and the self-employed are also workers. The fact that he attends school does not cancel his status as a worker during the time he is on the farm.
Q8. Compared to urban women, more rural women are found working. Why?
Three reasons. (i) Economic compulsion: rural families have limited resources and cannot afford to keep women idle at home. (ii) Family-farm labour: women work on family farms as cultivators or unpaid helpers — counted as workers. (iii) Income effect: in urban areas, when men earn high incomes, families discourage women from taking up jobs; this option is rarely available to rural households. The 2023–24 figures bear this out: rural female WPR is about 34.8 per 100 against urban female WPR of just 20.7 per 100.
Q9. Meena is a housewife. Besides taking care of household chores, she works in the cloth shop owned and operated by her husband. Can she be considered as a worker? Why?
Yes, Meena is a worker — at least in respect of her cloth-shop work. NCERT explicitly counts helpers of main workers as workers. Working in the family shop is an economic activity that adds to the shop's output and to GNP, regardless of whether she draws a separate salary. Many economists also argue that her household chores deserve to be counted as economic activity, although the present "narrow definition" excludes unpaid household work.
Q10. Find the odd man out: (i) rickshaw puller working under a rickshaw owner (ii) mason (iii) mechanic shop worker (iv) shoeshine boy.
Odd one out: (iv) shoeshine boy. The other three — rickshaw puller (under owner), mason and mechanic-shop worker — are hired workers, paid wages by another person. The shoeshine boy is self-employed: he owns his small kit and earns directly from customers.
Q11. The following table shows distribution of workforce in India for 1972–73 (in millions): Rural Male = 125, Rural Female = 69, Rural Total = 195; Urban Male = 32, Urban Female = 7, Urban Total = 39. Analyse it.
Total workforce = 195 + 39 = 234 million. Rural share ≈ 195/234 = 83.3%; urban share ≈ 16.7%. Male share = (125+32)/234 ≈ 67.1%; female share ≈ 32.9%. Three observations: (i) workforce was overwhelmingly rural, reflecting an agrarian economy; (ii) men dominated, but female participation was relatively higher than today partly because of female farm labour and unpaid family work being counted; (iii) urban female participation was very small (only 7 million out of 39 million urban workers ≈ 18%) — the same urban gender gap that persists today.
Q12. The following table shows population (in crores) and WPR for India in 1999–2000: Rural — 71.88 crores, WPR 41.9; Urban — 28.52 crores, WPR 33.7; Total — 100.40 crores, WPR 39.5. Estimate the urban and total workforce.
Apply the formula Workers = (Population × WPR) / 100.
Rural: (71.88 × 41.9) / 100 = 30.12 crore (given).
Urban: (28.52 × 33.7) / 100 = 9.61 crore.
Total: (100.40 × 39.5) / 100 = 39.66 crore.
Cross-check: 30.12 (rural) + 9.61 (urban) = 39.73 crore ≈ 39.66 crore (slight rounding error from independent WPRs).
Rural: (71.88 × 41.9) / 100 = 30.12 crore (given).
Urban: (28.52 × 33.7) / 100 = 9.61 crore.
Total: (100.40 × 39.5) / 100 = 39.66 crore.
Cross-check: 30.12 (rural) + 9.61 (urban) = 39.73 crore ≈ 39.66 crore (slight rounding error from independent WPRs).
Q13. Why are regular salaried employees more in urban areas than in rural areas?
Urban areas concentrate factories, shops, banks and offices that need workers on a regular basis with fixed monthly salaries. The urban share of regular salaried jobs is therefore high (~48%). In rural areas, the majority depends on family farms — a form of self-employment — and there are far fewer organised establishments. As a result, only about 13% of rural workers are regular salaried, whereas the figure is nearly four times higher in cities.
Q14. Why are less women found in regular salaried employment?
Three structural reasons. (i) Skill and education gap: women have historically had lower access to higher education, technical training and apprenticeships. (ii) Family caregiving: regular salaried jobs demand fixed hours, which clash with childcare and elder-care responsibilities falling primarily on women. (iii) Workplace barriers: safety concerns, lack of safe transport, absence of crèches, maternity-leave biases and outright discrimination push women into part-time or casual work. NCERT records women's regular-salaried share at ~16% versus ~21% for men — gap is "less" but persistent.
Q15. Analyse the recent trends in sectoral distribution of workforce in India.
India is undergoing classic structural change. Between 1972-73 and 2023-24, the primary-sector share of employment fell from 74.3% to 46.1%. The secondary sector rose from 10.9% to 24.1%, and the service sector from 14.8% to 29.8%. Three observations: (i) although the primary share has halved, it still employs the largest share — far more than its share in GDP. (ii) The secondary sector has stagnated around 24%, well below planned targets. (iii) The service sector is the fastest-growing employer and now houses most of the new jobs created in the post-reform period — but many of these are informal and casual.
Q16. "Compared to the 1970s, there has hardly been any change in the distribution of workforce across various industries." Comment.
The statement is incorrect. NCERT's Table 6.3 shows clear shifts: the primary share fell from 74.3% (1972-73) to 46.1% (2023-24); secondary rose from 10.9% to 24.1%; services rose from 14.8% to 29.8%. The status distribution also shifted — casualisation rose till the 1990s and then partly reversed, while regular salaried jobs slowly rose. Hence the structure of the workforce has changed substantially. What has not changed enough is the dominance of the primary sector relative to its small share in GDP, and the persistently high informality.
Q17. Do you think that during 1950–2010, employment generated in the country is commensurate with the growth of GDP in India? How?
No. NCERT records that during 1950–2010, India's GDP grew positively and consistently above the rate of employment growth. Employment grew at not more than 2 per cent per year. From the late 1990s, the gap actually widened — employment growth declined to early-planning-era levels. Scholars call this jobless growth: the economy produces more goods and services without creating proportionate jobs. Causes include capital-intensive technology, service-led growth that absorbs only skilled workers, and stagnant manufacturing.
Q18. Is it necessary to generate employment in the formal sector rather than in the informal sector? Why?
Yes. Formal-sector jobs offer regular income, social security (provident fund, gratuity, pension, maternity benefit), labour-law protection and the right to form trade unions. Informal-sector workers have none of these — they can be dismissed without compensation, work with outdated technology, often live in slums, and have no recourse against accident or illness. Since 89% of Indian workers are still informal, expanding the formal sector is essential for decent work, social stability and rising household savings. Informal employment may absorb labour, but it perpetuates poverty and vulnerability.
Q19. 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?
Yes, Victor is unemployed by the economists' working definition. NCERT cites the economist's rule: a person is unemployed if he is not able to get employment of even one hour in half a day. Victor gets only two hours a day — meaning that during one half of his working day he gets less than one hour of work; in the other half, he gets nothing. Persons like Victor typically do casual work — daily-wage construction labour, head-loading, tea-stall help, hawking small items, washing vehicles, or seasonal farm labour — and remain underemployed for the rest of the day.
Q20. You are residing in a village. If you are asked to advise the village panchayat, what kinds of activities would you suggest for the improvement of your village which would also generate employment?
(a) Water-conservation works under MGNREGA — check dams, percolation tanks, farm ponds, recharge wells. (b) Roads & connectivity — village-feeder roads, all-weather lanes to the mandi. (c) Allied agriculture — dairy cooperatives, poultry, fisheries, beekeeping, horticulture nurseries. (d) Non-farm enterprises — handicrafts, food-processing units (papad, pickle, jaggery), tailoring, repair shops, financed by Mudra/PMEGP/Stand-up India loans. (e) Social infrastructure — anganwadi rooms, primary health sub-centres, school toilets and sanitation. (f) Skill training — link the youth to PMKVY/Skill India, women to SHGs under SGSY/NRLM. Together these address all three forms of unemployment — open, seasonal and disguised.
Q21. Who is a casual wage labourer?
A casual wage labourer is a worker who is engaged on a day-to-day basis in others' farms or worksites and gets remuneration only for the work done that day. There is no regular contract, no social security, and the worker can be dismissed without compensation. Construction workers, head-loaders, brick-makers, agricultural daily-wagers and porters are common examples. NCERT calls them the most vulnerable of the three status categories — about 20% of India's workforce belongs here.
Q22. How will you know whether a worker is working in the informal sector?
Apply the NCERT criterion: an enterprise is in the formal sector if it is a public-sector establishment or a private-sector establishment employing 10 or more hired workers. Anything else is informal. Operationally, ask: (i) does the worker get a regular monthly salary slip? (ii) is provident fund and ESI deducted? (iii) is there a written contract? (iv) does the establishment maintain accounts and file taxes? (v) does it employ ≥10 hired workers? If the answers are mostly "no", the worker is in the informal sector. Examples include farmers, agricultural labourers, small-shop owners, self-employed without hired help, construction workers, head-loaders and most domestic workers.
📝 Competency-Based Questions — Unemployment & Policies
Source-based scenario: NCERT identifies four types of unemployment in India — open, disguised (about one-third of farm labour), seasonal and structural/frictional. The NSO measures unemployment through Usual Status, Current Weekly Status and Current Daily Status. Government effort runs from the National Rural Employment Programme (1980), Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme (1983), Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (1989), SGSY (1999), SGRY (2001), to MGNREGA (2005) which guarantees 100 days of wage employment to every rural household. Newer programmes — PMRY, PMEGP, Skill India, Make in India, Stand-up India and Mudra Yojana — focus on self-employment and skilling. Yet NCERT concludes that GDP has grown rapidly without simultaneous employment growth, forcing the government to keep generating rural jobs.
Q1. MGNREGA 2005 guarantees how many days of wage employment per rural household per year?
L3 ApplyAnswer: (c) 100 days — MGNREGA promises 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
Q2. Why is disguised unemployment called the most common form of rural unemployment in India?
L4 AnalyseAnswer: Indian agriculture is dominated by small family holdings on which all family members work, regardless of need. Many of these family workers contribute almost nothing to total output — their marginal product is zero. NCERT cites a late-1950s study showing about one-third of farm workers were disguisedly unemployed. Because rural workers cannot afford to remain idle, they continue to "work" on the family farm even when the farm needs fewer hands. The condition is invisible (everyone looks employed) but real — and it is unique to land-scarce, labour-abundant agrarian economies like India.
Q3. Evaluate whether MGNREGA has been a successful response to rural unemployment.
L5 EvaluateAnswer: Successes: (i) created a legal wage floor in rural areas; (ii) injected purchasing power that helped reverse seasonal distress migration; (iii) built durable assets — ponds, roads, plantations, water-shed works; (iv) achieved roughly 55% women workdays, advancing gender empowerment. Limitations: (i) wage delays; (ii) leakages and ghost muster rolls; (iii) frequent reduction of fund allocations; (iv) the 100-day cap is treated as a ceiling, leaving households underemployed for the remaining year; (v) skill-upgradation is missing. Verdict: MGNREGA is necessary but not sufficient — combining it with skilling, manufacturing growth and rural infrastructure would yield a deeper structural impact.
Q4. (HOT) Design a four-pronged strategy that could simultaneously reduce disguised, seasonal, structural and open unemployment in India.
L6 CreateAnswer: Prong 1 — Disguised: raise farm productivity and offer non-farm rural enterprise (food processing, dairy, handicrafts) so surplus farm labour can move out without losing income. Prong 2 — Seasonal: guarantee 100+ days of work near home through MGNREGA-Plus, irrigation projects and watershed work that can run in lean months. Prong 3 — Structural: launch industry-aligned skill training (Skill India, PMKVY, ITI revamp) to bridge the gap between worker skills and emerging service-sector jobs. Prong 4 — Open: drive Make-in-India manufacturing expansion + MSME credit (Mudra, Stand-up India) to absorb the urban educated unemployed. Cross-cutting: formalise informal jobs (e-Shram, EPFO/ESIC enforcement) so that new jobs come with social security — converting quantity into quality of employment.
🔗 Assertion–Reason Questions — Unemployment & Government Policies
Options: (A) Both A & R true, R correctly explains A · (B) Both true, R does not explain A · (C) A true, R false · (D) A false, R true.
Assertion (A): Disguised unemployment is widespread on Indian family farms.
Reason (R): When more workers are deployed on a small holding than the farm actually needs, the marginal contribution of additional labour to output is zero.
Answer: (A) — Both true and R correctly explains A. NCERT explicitly uses the example of a four-acre farmer who needs only two workers but employs five — making the extra labour disguisedly unemployed because their marginal product is zero.
Assertion (A): MGNREGA is a flagship employment-guarantee Act of the Government of India.
Reason (R): Under MGNREGA, every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work is legally entitled to 100 days of wage employment per year.
Answer: (A) — Both true and R correctly explains A. The 2005 Act creates a legal right (not just a programme) to 100 days of wage employment, which is exactly why it is the flagship rural-employment intervention.
Assertion (A): Indian workers cannot remain completely unemployed for very long.
Reason (R): Their desperate economic condition forces them to accept jobs that nobody else would do — unpleasant or even dangerous work in unclean or unhealthy surroundings.
Answer: (A) — Both true and R correctly explains A. NCERT exactly states this: poverty does not allow long-term open unemployment in India; the burden is hidden as under-employment and acceptance of low-quality work.
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