Fewer urban Indians aged above 15 found steady work in 2009-10 than they did five years before. The worker population ratio (WPR) – which denotes the number of people securing more than 30 days of work each year for every 1,000 members of the population — witnessed a decline between 2004-05 and 2009-10 for both males and females living in urban areas, the latest National Sample Survey data show.

Across urban India, the WPR fell 3 per cent for males and 19.3 per cent for females on average in all categories of cities and towns. The decline can be largely attributed to faster population growth than job creation The growth in population can mainly be on account of migration. Another factor is that, working women are largely from the poorer sections of society; with rising income, many women stop seeking work.

The trend was more pronounced in large cities than in smaller-size cities and towns.

The 29 Class-I cities with a population over one million identified in the survey saw the male worker population ratio decline 3.8 per cent between 2004-05 and 2009-10. The female WPR witnessed a greater drop, falling by 15.7 per cent.

A similar trend was seen in Class-II (with a population of 50,000 to one million) and Class-III (with a population less than 50,000) towns.

The male WPR came down by 2.6 per cent in Class-II locations and 2.8 per cent in Class-III towns.

And, as seen in the larger cities and towns, the female WPR saw even greater declines of 18.3 per cent and 25.4 per cent, respectively.

>arvind.jayaram@thehindu.co.in

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