Employment opportunities in education sector of India: An analysis using PLFS data

Abstract

Increasing human capital of a nation is important for its long-run economic growth and development. Increase in human capital requires higher education for the citizen of an economy. The works related to education comes in the service sector, which is one of the highest productive sectors of the Indian economy. In Indian case, the service sector is one of the fastest growing sectors of Indian economy. Within the service sector, the education industry is found in a mix of traditional and modern occupations. The present paper analyses the employment distribution in the Indian service sector. Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) dataset of NSSO has been used with logistic regression for the analysis. In addition to the binary logit model, the study has used interactions, marginal effects, predictive probabilities, and two-way and three-way contingency tables for detailed analysis. The variable explanatory variables used int the analysis are caste, gender, location and education. The study finds that employment distribution in the education service sector generates higher inequalities in the Indian economy. This is because the core occupations of education service sector are retained by the people of urban area, upper castes, males who have higher education. On the other side, people from rural areas, lower castes and females with low education are found employed in the non-core areas of the education service sector. Moreover, the non-core areas are found to be lesser productive and remunerative compared to the core areas of education service sector. Identification of core and non-core occupations of education service sector is done using National Classification of Occupation. The paper recommends strong affirmative action policy in the education service sector so that people of diverse background could have equal employment opportunities.