31% Muslims have economic role

A little less than a third of Muslims in the country are engaged in economic activity, as against 40 per cent of the Hindu population, according to Census 2001 figures released by the government today. The work participation rate (WPR) or the percentage of workers to the total population for all religions is 39.1.

The census has tabulated the work participation rates for four broad categories. These include cultivators (CL), agricultural labourers (AL), household industry workers (HHI) and 'others' (OW) which includes people working in services, manufacturing, trade, commerce and allied activities.

Economists, however, said that more detailed categorisation of data would have been more useful and also that age-group wise WPRs would yield better results for analysis.

The results show that 82.5 per cent of workers in the 'other religions' category are engaged in agriculture, either as CL or AL, while 60.7 per cent of Hindus are similarly engaged.

Among others, this percentage is below 50 per cent, that is, a majority of workers among them are engaged in non-agricultural pursuits.

The WPR for the country's 138 million Muslims, at 31.3 per cent is the lowest among the major religious groups in the country, while that for 'other religions and persuasions' is the highest at 48.4 per cent.

Hindus, who number 828 million, have a fairly high WPR of 40.4 per cent, while 40.6 per cent of

Buddhists are part of the work force. Christians also have a higher than national average WPR of 39.7 per cent.

Among Hindus, the highest WPR of over 60 per cent has been returned from Mizoram and Lakshwadeep while eight states and union territories registered more than 50 per cent WPR for Sikhs.

The lowest WPR of less than 35 per cent has been recorded in 23 states and UTs among Jains and in 22 states and UTs among Muslims.

The analysis indicates that especially in the case of smaller states and UTs, religious communities, which have higher WPR are those which have a small population with a greater proportion of males, possibly indicating their migrant status.

At the aggregate level, 31.2 per cent of the workers are CLs while 26.5 per cent are ALs. A total of 4.2 per cent of the national population is in the HHI segment and the balance is in OW.

The 'other religions' category has the highest representation of 49.9 per cent in the CLs while 33.1 per cent of Hindu workers are cultivators. Over 32 per cent of Sikhs and 29.2 per cent Christians are in this category while only a fifth of Muslim workers are cultivators.

Buddhists, with 37.6 percent, have the maximum proportion of people working as ALs, followed by 'other religions with 32.6 per cent. A total of 27.6 per cent of Hindus work in this segment.

The highest employment group in the HHI category is Muslims. Over 8 per cent of them are employed in this sector, as against the national average of 4.2 per cent of the total population.

Among Hindus, 3.8 per cent of workers are in HHI and around 3 per cent Sikh and Jain workers fall in this segment.

In the 'others' category, Jains predominate with 81.7 per cent of them engaged in tertiary sector activities. Almost 53 per cent of Christians and 49 per cent of Muslims are employed in this segment. Hindu OWs constitute 35.5 per cent of the total Hindu population in the country.