Occupational Pattern and Workforce Participation of Women in Indian Rural Punjab: A Caste Perspective

The paper examines employment of women in rural Punjab for the period 1993–1994 to 2011–2012. The analysis is done using the unit-level data for five employment rounds of NSS. The NSS rounds prior to 2009–2010 were based on National Classification of Occupation (NCO) 1968, whereas the latest two rounds use NCO 2004. The paper uses the concordance tables (with minor adjustments) to make all rounds comparable. The purpose of the exercise is to examine participation rates and analyze occupational pattern among rural women in the context of growth and structural change in the Punjab economy. The paper finds that structural change has neither improved labour market participation nor quality of employment among rural women during the last two decades. The analysis provides evidence of downward occupational mobility among all women and finds that the caste attribute further intensifies such downward trend, making SC women worse off in terms of occupational outcomes.