Abstract
The faster growth of rural non-farm employment (RNFE) in the last decade in India attracted considerable analytical alteration, some even anticipating it as an indication of an alternative path of structural change. This chapter analyzes the changes in RNFE in terms of gender, class, activity, and quality. The analysis presented in this chapter finds a significant shift in favor of RNFE in both principal status and subsidiary status, with the rise in the former is driven by male workers’ share, it is female labor in the latter. In terms of class, the shift from agriculture to non-agriculture is more pronounced among poorer households; construction is the major absorber of labor in non-farm activities but increasingly casual in nature. Manufacturing, though small, is moving from self-employment toward regular and casual wage employment, construction increasingly toward casual wage employment, and services toward self-employment and regular employment. Qualitatively RNFE is increasing casual in nature.