Minority Report: Unemployment Rate Rise among Religious Minorities 2023-2024 | Economic and political news

High poverty despite high unemployment

This may seem confusing at first because Muslims have a much higher poverty rate than others, as the Rajinder Sachar Committee noted earlier this century. However, a deeper analysis explains the link between higher poverty and lower unemployment rates among Muslims.

Amitabh Kundu, who headed the assessment committee after coming to power in Sachar, said poverty among Muslims was much higher than among Hindus, especially if the Scheduled Caste population was excluded.

The Sachar Commission found that Muslims faced quite high levels of poverty. Although the date is set, the commission found that in 2004–05, 22.7 percent of India's total population lived in poverty, with the Scheduled Castes and Tribes combined at 35 percent, followed by Muslims at 31 percent.

As for why the unemployment rate was highest among Sikhs and Christians, Jawaharlal Nehru University economics professor Praveen Jha explained that there could be an “economic recovery effect” at play due to post-Covid job instability. “The economically better-off sectors of society are waiting for better employment opportunities in times of economic weakness. And Sikhs and Christians are certainly in a better situation than other minorities,” says Jha.

In 2023–2024, unemployment for all minorities was higher in urban areas than in rural areas.

Hidden unemployment

Kundu, who is currently a senior economist and professor emeritus at LJ University, Ahmedabad, said the existence of hidden unemployment reduces the unemployment rate in all rural communities compared to urban areas. For example, urban Muslims have the lowest unemployment rate of all religious groups.

Explaining the reasons, Kundu says: “Generally, the poor will take any job well below the minimum wage because they cannot afford unemployment….” This goes some way to explaining the lower unemployment rate compared to Muslims in urban areas. to the Hindus.”

The Sachar Committee found that the situation of all Muslims was marginally better than that of the scheduled castes and tribes, although slightly worse in urban areas. The unemployment rate among minorities in rural areas is higher than at the pan-India level.

However, when it comes to urban female unemployment, Muslims have lower rates than Hindus. Kundu attributed this to the large number of Muslim women not looking for work. “In addition to poverty factors, socio-cultural constraints may explain Muslim women's reluctance to actively seek employment in urban areas,” she says.

Reluctant job seeker

This reluctance to find work is also reflected in the low labor force participation rate (LFPR), or the percentage of the population looking for work. In 2017–2018, Muslims and Sikhs had lower LFPR than the national average.

However, the LFPR across religions increased by more than 8 percentage points between 2017–18 and 2023–24. But only in the case of Muslims the increase was less than 8%.

Among employed Muslims, the majority are self-employed, and a small percentage have permanent jobs. Domestic help is not taken into account here.

In comparison, a higher percentage of Christians and Sikhs are gainfully employed, although most of them are self-employed here. The lowest percentage of workers are casual workers among Christians and Sikhs.

This also applies to Hindus. Christians and Sikhs make up a larger percentage of this class of workers than Hindus. In this case, Christians have the best quality of services.

However, in the five years ending 2023–2024, the share of wage earners among all religious communities declined. The greatest decline was recorded by Muslims, while the smallest by Sikhs.

In 2019–2020, approximately 21.5 percent Muslim community workers were in paid employment, but in 2023–2024 their share dropped to 18%, a decline of 3.5 percentage points.

For Christians, 27.6 percent of workers had a permanent job in 2023-2024, compared with 29.9 percent in 2019-20, a decline of 2.3 percentage points.

The number of permanent workers in the Sikh community decreased by 0.7 percentage points. In 2023–2024, 26.7 percent municipality employees were employed, compared to 27.4 percent. in 2019–2020.

By comparison, Indians have seen the least deterioration in employment standards. In 2023–2024, approximately 21.9 percent employees had a permanent paid job, down 0.8 percentage points from 22.7%. in 2019–2020.

Overall, just over one-fifth of workers had permanent jobs. The share of hired employment dropped to 21.7%. in 2023–2024 from 22.9 percent in 2019–2020.

Link to reading and writing

There may be a broader connection between the trends cited above and literacy rates. Although the literacy rate across the community has increased over five years, the lowest literacy rate across the Muslim community was recorded between 2019-20 and 2023-24. Indians witnessed the lowest percentage of increase in literacy rate during this period.

The literacy rate among Muslims increased by 2.6 percentage points, from 75% in 2019-2020 to 77.6% in 2023-2024. In 2023-24, 79.6% of Indians were educated, up 1.9 percentage points from 77.7% five years earlier. Meanwhile, Sikh literacy increased by 3.7 percentage points from 79.1 percent in 2019-20 to 82.8 percent in 2023-24.

The literacy rate among Christians increased from 84.3% to 87.6% during this period, an increase of 3.3 percentage points.

Overall, the literacy rate increased by 2.1 percentage points, from 77.6 percent. in 2019–2020 to 79.7 percent in 2023–2024.