A paper shows how it’s difficult to pinpoint a trend in migration and occupation change
FOR LONG we have been told and taught that the question of being rural and urban completely revolves around the extent of a population’s engagement in the farm sector.
Census 2011 brought in a revelation that the population of urban India increased much more than the rural population, for the first time in 90 years. If urban population shows greater increase, does that necessarily imply rural to urban migration, where the migrants have given up on agriculture? And when we say migration, is it only about rural to urban migration for better work opportunities? Is this an inevitably one sided transition?
A paper by the Centre for Policy Research, ‘Farm to Non-Farm: Are India’s Villages “Rurbanising”?’, compares different data sets to show us deeper meanings of trends. From Census 2011, one can see that the primary reason for increasing urban population is the increase in the number of census towns, which rose from 1,361 in 2001 to 3,894 in 2011. By definition, a census town is a unit that can be declared as a town when ‘its population crosses 5,000; when the number of male workers in agriculture falls to less than 25 per cent of the total; and where population density is at least 400 per square kilometre’. This certainly means that a greater work force moves into the non-farm sector. This could also mean that there are more attractive opportunities available outside the farm sector.
NSS data for 2011-2012 shows that 64 per cent of the rural workforce is engaged in agriculture and allied activities, yet half of the total manufacturing employment and 44 per cent of the total services employment is in rural areas. A renewed focus on the agro based industry will add to the diversifying opportunity pool in rural areas. It must be understood that the movement of workforce into and out of farm sector is not unidirectional and is highly unpredictable.
It must be understood that the movement of workforce into and out of farm sector is not unidirectional and is highly unpredictable.
Smaller rural settlements have more dynamic work force and a small change in its occupation could change the status of the settlement from rural to urban. Also, the characteristic of work force for both small and large settlements is highly complex to be defined by a single trend. If a settlement is predominantly agrarian in one decade, it could evolve to be otherwise in the next decade.
One might believe that it is the agricultural labourers who might cause this flux in work force because they do not have a reliable source of income. In reality, the cultivators have also contributed to the transitions. Contrary to popular perception, India’s villages are not moving irrevocably away from agriculture. It is a process of ebb and flow, characterised by variation and unpredictability
Contrary to popular perception, India’s villages are not moving irrevocably away from agriculture. It is a process of ebb and flow, characterised by variation and unpredictability
And the movement from farm to non farm sector could either be due to distress in agriculture or the availability of other options outside agriculture. It is very critical to gauge this reality before introducing new schemes or policies to be able to create a sustainable impact than become irrelevant eventually.
Interestingly, change in the proportion of non-farm workforce is not found to be related to change in cultivator workforce or change in agricultural labourers at the settlement level. This shows that it is not just a farm versus non-farm story and that there is fluidity of occupations in the rural settlements of the country.
Change in the proportion of non-farm workforce is not found to be related to change in cultivator workforce or change in agricultural labourers at the settlement level. This shows that it is not just a farm versus non-farm story
On the structural front, there is a lot of variability in all three categories of workers and this variability reflects in the ease with which people are moving from one sector to another. This may mean that rural labour markets might not be as sticky as we think they are.
The instability of the rural non-farm workforce shows that the rural-urban boundary is blurry, and from the policy point of view, this creates a difficulty in the formulation and application of schemes in these settlements.