Rural non-farm employment in India: how comparable are NSSO-EUS, Labour Bureau-EUS, and PLFS estimates?

The paper objectively assesses the comparability of NSSO, Labour Bureau and PLFS survey estimates on rural non-farm employment in India. As these surveys were repeated cross-sectionally, they were compared based on parameters such as type of data collected, sampling frame, sampling methodology and sample size. The study compares state-level rural non-farm employment estimates from NSSO-EUS and LB-EUS for the overlapping year 2011–12 and showed that LB-EUS survey estimates were slightly under-estimated. The study using regression models for correcting these estimation errors showed that the re-estimated values are more or less similar to the actual values. The study shows that NSSO-EUS and LB-EUS are comparable based on the estimated data and NSSO-EUS and PLFS are comparable based on the methodology. The study concludes that the rural non-farm employment estimates from NSSO-EUS, LB-EUS and PLFS are comparable for assessing the trends.