Interviewer instructions
Usual principal activity particulars of household members: The usual principal activity particulars of each member of the household will be collected in columns (3) to (6) of this block. This will include information on industry-occupation of the working members.
Column (3): Status: For each of the members, the usual principal activity status will be recorded in this column. In the first instance, the broad usual principal activity of the person will be identified based on the various activities pursued by the person during the reference period of last 365 days adopting a 'relatively long time (or major time)' criterion, not necessarily for a continuous period. The broad usual principal activity status will be one of the three categories viz. 'employed' (working), 'unemployed' (available for work) or 'not in labour force' (neither working nor available for work). It is to be noted that in deciding this, only the period normally available in a day for pursuing various activities need to be considered, and not the 24 hours of a day.
Codes 11, 12, 21, 31, 41 & 51 refer to the 'employed', 81 to the 'unemployed' and the remaining viz. 91 to 97 refer to the 'not in labour force'. For children of age 0 - 4 years, code 97 may be given.
Some special cases for determining usual principal activity status are listed below:
(i) It is to be noted that availability for work being more of a status than an activity, a person being available for work may well be engaged in one or more of the activities denoted by codes 91 to 97. In all such cases except those engaged as students (code 91), persons will be categorised as 'unemployed' if he/she reports to be available for work for a relatively long period in spite of his/her being engaged simultaneously in a non-economic activity. But, if a person who is available for work is reported to have attended educational institution more or less regularly for a relatively long period during the preceding 365 days, further probing as to whether he will give up the study if the job is available is to be made before considering him as 'unemployed'.
(ii) Again, it also needs to be emphasised that the procedure to be followed in ascertaining the activity status of a domestic servant who is a member of the employer's household is different from that adopted for other members of the household. It may be noted that engagement in domestic duties by such household members is not considered economic activity as defined for the survey. On the other hand, although a domestic servant staying in the employer's household and taking food from the common kitchen is, by definition, a member of the employer's household, he/she is also engaged in domestic duties in return for wages in cash and/or kind. Thus, as a special case, domestic duties pursued by a domestic servant will be considered as an economic activity and the activity status code as is applicable will be assigned to him/her.
(iii) Carpenters, masons, plumbers, etc., who move from place to place in search of work and carry out the work on a contract basis (not on wage basis) whenever work is available, will be considered as 'own-account worker'. But if such persons are working on a wage basis under a contractor, they will be considered as employee.