Casual jobs and informality make the measurement of employment, and hence, the assessment of employment opportunities at the local level, particularly challenging. The NSS defines participation and work in four different ways. In this paper we focus on two definitions that come up often in the discussion on measurement of jobs and their quality, namely Principal Status and Usual Status. Based on Principal Status (PS), a person participates in the labor force is he or she worked or sought work for at least six months over the previous year, and was employed for at least three of those months. Based on Usual Status (US), it is enough to have been employed for at least one month during the previous year to be considered a labor force participant. Thus, the US definition provides a broad measure of participation, whereas the PS definition focuses on a steadier and more regular labor market engagement.<sup>2</sup> Because open unemployment is marginal based on NSS criteria, participation and work are very similar under the PS and US definitions. The difference between employment under the broader US definition and the narrower PS definition is made of subsidiary jobs. These jobs reflect a more tenuous attachment to the labor force.

To characterize the employment opportunities available at the local level, in this paper we combine information on activity status and sector of work in the NSS. This allows us to define four types of jobs: farmers, the non-farm self-employed, non-farm regular wage workers, and all casual wage workers. Employment shares can be computed for each of these categories as the ratio of working-age people holding each of the four types of jobs relative to the working-age population. For men, employment shares over the period 2004-05 to 2011-12 are almost identical when using the PS and US definitions (figure 6).<sup>3</sup> For women, on the other hand, the US definition results in higher levels of employment, and therefore, in a higher LFPR. This difference between the US and PS definitions reflects the greater proportion of women engaged in subsidiary work, especially in farming and casual jobs.

Employment shares also reveal a greater diversification of jobs for men than for women, and this is so under both the US and the PS definitions. In rural areas, women’s employment is concentrated in farming and casual jobs. Fewer women work in urban areas, but those who do are typically in non-farm self-employment or in non-farm regular employment (mostly in the services sector).

This lower diversification of employment among women matters, because from 2004-05 to 201112, female farming jobs declined much more rapidly than male farming jobs. Moreover, female farming jobs declined much more under the US definition, implying a sharper decline in

> 2    The other two definitions include the current weekly status (based on an individual’s activities in the week preceding the survey) and current daily status (which captures the intensity of employment in the week before the survey).

> 3 With open unemployment being marginal under NSS criteria, working-age people who are out of the labor force account for the bulk of the left-out group.

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