Kerala 2005 - of Planning Commission

CHAPTER 7
RECKONING CAUTION: EDUCATED UNEMPLOYMENT AND GENDER UNFREEDOM
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2.10 High Youth Unemployment
The National Sample Survey also revealed that apart from
the high incidence of unemployment among women in
general, the youth seem to have a high unemployment
rate. Young men in the age group of 15-25 experience a
high unemployment rate while this is true for the 15-30
age group for women. Women have higher incidence than
men but the difference is much less sharp as compared to
all women and all men. Urban men experience a higher
rate of unemployment than rural men, but this is somewhat
reversed in the case of women. At the all-India level also,
urban unemployment is higher than rural unemployment,
both for men and women.
2.11 Educated Unemployed
That the problem of unemployment in Kerala is basically
one of educated unemployment has already been
highlighted. For those below the primary level of education,
chronic unemployment is almost negligible, i.e. less than
2 per cent for the last two decades. While it is around
5 per cent among those with middle school education,
the rate is not high enough to be characterised as very
serious or alarming. In this category, urban women have
the highest incidence of unemployment. As educational
attainments increased, the unemployment rates declined to
well over 20 per cent until the early 1990s and further to
around 13 per cent in the late 1990s. The highest incidence
of unemployment is among those with just secondary level
of education, with rates well above 30 per cent throughout
the last two decades. Women experience three times
higher incidence of unemployment than this category of
educated men. However, even among the highly educated
women in Kerala, (graduate and above) latest data reveals
that worker participation rates were 37 per cent (urban)
and 32 per cent (rural) compared with 87 per cent and
82 per cent, respectively, for men ( Appendix Table A7.3).
Further, gender disparity in levels of educated employment
(ratio of male graduate WPR to female graduate WPR) has
widened from 2.0 to 2.4 in the 1990s.
2.12 Rural-Urban Difference in Kerala and India
Technically, it will be correct to conclude that unemployment
rates in rural Kerala are far higher than at the all-India level.
However, the rural and urban continuum in Kerala will
suggest that it is open unemployment. For India there is a
significant rural-urban difference giving rise to the possibility
of a high magnitude of ‘disguised unemployment’.
2.13 Income Dimension
The difference between Kerala and all-India in terms of the
time measure of unemployment gives us some clue to the
importance of the income dimension. While unemployment
at the all-India level, as measured through the NSS, ranges
between 2-3 per cent, the incidence of income-poverty was
around 30 per cent in 1999-2000. 7 This means poverty is at
least 10 times the incidence of unemployment, pointing to
the low income-earning capacity of the employed (e.g. low
wages of rural labourers) and/or the existence of disguised
unemployment (among the self-employed).
The contrast with Kerala should be an eye opener. While
the latest unemployment rate is around 11 per cent, the
incidence of income-poverty is around 12 per cent, i.e.
more or less the same as the former. Given the fact that
unemployment rates are quite low among the unskilled
(indicated by low levels of education), the phenomenon
of unemployment is very weakly, if at all, associated
with poverty. This could be the case given the high rate
of wages of rural labourers and the possible low level of
disguised unemployed. However, more broader measures
of unemployment indicate that there could be considerable
underemployment in the sense of less number of days of
work, especially of those in casual employment. This, in
fact, is the case.
2.14 Understanding the Problem of
Educated Unemployed
The 2003 survey attempted a measurement of unemployment
based on the current status of the sample population at
the time of survey, though such measurement was not its
primary focus. It was found that 45 per cent of those in the
labour force were unemployed. However, if we remove
students (who are also seeking work) from this group,
it comes down to around 38 per cent. By any interpretation,
this is a very high figure.
That educated unemployment is concentrated among the
youth has also been confirmed by our primary survey of
2003. In general, it is also concentrated among those with
lower educational qualifications (10 or 12 years of school
education only) but not necessarily so. Those with degree
7 The incidence of poverty as per official estimates was reported as 26 per cent. However, there has been a debate on the
methodological aspects of this estimation. The unofficial estimate is 30 per cent. See, e.g. Deaton and Dreze (2003).