P31. What did [the respondent] do in the last 7 days?

In this section, we want to find out whether a person is working or not and, if working, what type of work he or she is doing. For those who are not working, we would like to know whether or not a person is seeking work or interested in getting work or whether a person is engaged or involved in some other activity such that he or she is not available or interested in doing work of any economic kind. These questions are to be asked only of persons who are at least 12 years old on the day of enumeration.
The persons who are 12 years and older can be divided into two categories:

Those who are in the labor force can be further classified as below:

• 1. Working or work assured but not yet started work.
• 2. Not working:

• Able to work and actively seeking work; and
• Able to and interested in work though not actively seeking work.

Those economically inactive (not in the labor force) will include the following categories of persons:

• Mainly looking after own household duties (housewives/homemakers), not persons who help with household chores or looking after children.
• Full-time students;
• Not able to work (disabled, too old, invalids);
• Pensioners (only those solely living on pensions);
• Persons living only on rental incomes, past savings, interest, inheritance gambling income, etc.; and
• Others, who are neither interested nor available for work, such as beggars, vagrants, prisoners, etc.

We define a person as working if he or she performed some work for pay or profit. Payment may be either in cash, in the form of goods or services or in any combination of these.

Examples:

• A person employed by someone on fixed monthly income or weekly or daily wages.
• A person who is paid by an employer on the basis of piece work.
• A person running his/her own business such as a marketer, a hawker, a cobbler, a tinsmith, a bottle-store operator, a grocery/store owner, etc.
• Two (or more) partners running a business.
• A farmer who tills his/her own farm, with or without the help of other persons.
• A farm laborer who is paid partly in cash and partly in terms of farm produce.
• A person who works in a hotel and gets his wages partly in cash and partly in terms of board and lodging.
• Some students manage to find a job during school holidays and might be working during the reference period. These should be classified as working.

Persons who had a job and would normally have worked for pay or profit or return in kind but were:

• Prevented from working by temporary illness, bad weather, industrial dispute such as a strike or a lockout, on suspension and;
• Persons, who had got a new job but had not yet reported for work, are to be classified as working.

A person will be classified as working if he/she did any work for pay, profit, or family gain any time during the preceding week for a period equal to at least one working day. By 'preceding week' we mean seven days immediately before the day of enumeration.

For people in agricultural and allied operations the following activities will constitute work during the preceding week for a period equal to at least one working day:

• Agriculture: Growing of crops, fruits and vegetables, and raising of poultry and livestock.
• Fishing and hunting.
• Forestry: Collecting or cutting wood, charcoal burning, gathering of honey and beeswax from trees, gathering of mushrooms, caterpillars, and collecting wild fruits, etc for sale or own consumption.

Persons (housewives/homemakers) doing only household duties of looking after their own families are not to be regarded as working. Therefore, do not include housewives/homemakers who do not have paid employment or who do not work regularly in a family business or on a family farm as working. However, if a housewife/homemaker is having paid employment or works on a family farm or a family business, he/she is then to be regarded as working. Similarly, a housewife/homemaker who looks after another family and is paid for his/her work in cash or kind is to be regarded as working.

4.15.2 Seasonality

There are instances when we find people engaged in seasonal work. Seasonal work refers to a seasonal activity such as agriculture, sugar cane harvesting, collecting caterpillars, picking mushrooms and collecting wild fruits e.t.c.

P - 31: What did [the respondent] do in the last 7 days?

By this we mean, if a person was employed or worked for at least 1 hour for pay, profit or family gain, or had a job, worked on a farm or business. For a person who had two or more jobs in the last 7 days collect information about the job that he/she is currently doing.

Under this question you have to determine the economic activity category to which the person belongs. The reference period in this question is the last 7 days and all persons who will fall under categories 1, 2, 3, up to 8 will be treated as the currently economically active population (Labor Force), while those falling under categories 9, 10 and 11 will be treated as being outside the labor force. Shade appropriately.

Note that precedence is given to employment over unemployment and to unemployment over economic inactivity. A person who is both working and seeking work is classified as employed, and a student who is attending school and also seeking work is classified as unemployed.

One effect of the priority rule is that employment always takes precedence over other activities, regardless of the amount of time devoted to it during the reference period, which in extreme cases may be only one hour.

4.15.3 Worked - paid non seasonal

This refers to persons who, during the reference period, performed some work for a wage or salary, in cash or in kind. The work referred to in this category is not seasonal but done throughout the year.

4.15.4 Worked - unpaid non-seasonal

This refers to persons who, during the reference period, performed non seasonal work, without a wage or salary either in cash or in kind.

4.15.5 Worked - paid seasonal

This refers to persons who performed seasonal work for a wage or salary during the reference period.

4.15.6 Worked - unpaid seasonal

This refers to persons who performed seasonal work without a wage or salary.

4.15.7 On leave

This refers to persons who had a job and would normally have worked for pay or profit or in kind but were on paid or unpaid vacation or study leave.

4.15.8 Unpaid work on household holding or business

This refers to persons who worked without pay during the reference period on a household holding or business.

4.15.9 Unemployed and seeking work

This refers to persons who took steps to seek paid employment or self-employment during the reference period. This will include people who:

• Registered at an employment exchange;
• Went to possible employers to ask for a job;
• Wrote a letter or applied for a job;
• Asked friends, relatives, neighbors, etc. to help them find a job; and
• Made any effort to start business e.g. opening a market stall or clearing piece of land say for an agricultural activity.

This refers to persons who were not working but would like to have a job. These persons are not sure that there is any job available, or who imagine that they are over qualified, or who just say "Where can I get employment?"

4.15.11 Full time housewife/homemaker

This refers to persons who are engaged in household duties in their own home; and not persons who help with household chores or looking after children.

4.15.12 Full-time students

This refers to persons of either sex not classified as usually economically active who attended any regular educational institution, public or private, for systematic instruction at any level of education during the reference period. Also note that those who are on holiday at enumeration time but attend an educational institution regularly are to be recorded as full time students.

4.15.13 Not available for work for other reasons

This refers to people who were not seeking work and were not housewives or homemakers during the reference period. This includes those who are sick, disabled, retired and also those who may not want to work, beggars, prisoners, vagrants, gamblers, etc.