Socio-economic Profile of Labour and Owners of Enterprises: A Case Study from Rural Non-farm Sector of Punjab

Abstract

In the non-farm sector people are employed in two ways, either they work as laborers in rural enterprises or they have their own rural enterprises. Around 8.6% people are illiterate, 27% have completed primary education, 33.3% have completed Matriculation examination(10th), 17.9% have completed secondary education(S Sec) , 12.1% are graduates and 1.2% are above graduates. Majority of schedule caste workers are engaged in activities like Aaganwadi and Asha worker, Auto-mobile repair, Brick Kiln worker, casual worker, domestic worker, factory labour and religious work. On the other hand, general category workers are engaged in activities like Govt. Job Regular, Medicine, and shop labour. On the other hand either OBC workers are engaged in traditional activities like carpenter and workshop labour or as drivers and in shops As per our analysis, less than 2% people have dependency ratio of 1 person, 49.1% respondents have dependency ratio of between 1 to 3 persons, and 42.6%respondents have dependency ratio of 3 to 5 persons and 7% people have dependency ratio of above 5 persons.