One of the reasons for Indias occupational structure remaining more or less the same over the years has been that

examrobotsa's picture
Q: 76 (IAS/1995)
One of the reasons for India’s occupational structure remaining more or less the same over the years has been that

question_subject: 

Economics

question_exam: 

IAS

stats: 

0,68,107,68,12,31,64

keywords: 

{'agriculture': [5, 1, 0, 6], 'economic development': [0, 0, 1, 1], 'occupational structure': [0, 1, 0, 0], 'land holdings': [1, 1, 0, 0], 'industry': [4, 6, 11, 27], 'productivity': [0, 0, 0, 1], 'intensive industries': [0, 1, 0, 0], 'investment pattern': [0, 1, 0, 0], 'india': [8, 1, 7, 13], 'land': [0, 0, 0, 1], 'capital': [31, 3, 12, 18]}

The question pertains to why India`s occupational structure has remained largely the same over the years. The provided answer is option 1, asserting that the investment pattern has been directed towards capital-intensive industries.

In the context of this answer, it`s important to understand what capital-intensive industries are. These are industries that require significant financial investment in machinery and equipment, thus they don`t usually generate large-scale employment opportunities. Therefore, the workforce continues to be primarily engaged in agriculture due to lack of other job opportunities, thereby maintaining the status quo of the Indian occupational structure.

Option 2 suggests that high productivity in agriculture is enticing people to remain in farming. This is not largely true as, despite productivity increases, the overall income from agriculture for individual farmers may not be sufficiently attractive due to various factors like small land holdings, dependency on weather, prices of inputs etc.

Option 3 implies that ceilings on land holdings has led to more people owning agricultural land, hence they prefer to stick to farming. But land ceiling policies have not been successful in many areas and it has not widely influenced the occupational structure.

Option 4 suggests that people`s unawareness of the benefits of transitioning from agriculture to industries is another reason. While this may be true to an extent, it`s not the primary reason