India - Employment and Unemployment : NSS 66th round, Schedule 10, July 2009 - June 2010

The household type, based on the means of livelihood of a household, is decided on the basis of the sources of the household's income during the 365 days preceding the date of survey. For this purpose, only the household's income (net income and not gross income) from economic activities is to be considered; but the incomes of servants and paying guests are not to be taken into account.

In rural areas, a household will belong to any one of the following five household types:
self-employed in non-agriculture (SENA)
agricultural labour (AL)
other labour (OL)
self-employed in agriculture (SEA)
others (OTH)

For urban areas, the household types are:
self-employed (SE), regular wage/salary earning (RWS),
casual labour (CL),
others (OTH).

Procedure for determining household type in rural sector: For a rural household, if a single source (among the five sources of income listed above) contributes 50% or more of the household's income from economic activities during the last 365 days, it will be assigned the type corresponding to that source.

For a household to be classified as 'agricultural labour' (AL) or 'self-employed in agriculture' (SEA) its income from that source must be 50% or more of its total income. If there is no such source yielding 50% or more of the household's total income, it will be assigned one of the remaining types (SENA, OL or OTH) according to the following procedure.
To be classified as self-employed in non-agriculture (SENA), the household's income from that source must be greater than its income from rural labour (all wage-paid manual labour) as well as that from all other economic activities put together (a three-way division is to be considered here).

A household not assigned one of the types SENA, AL or SEA will be classified as other labour (OL) if its income from rural labour (all wage-paid manual labour) is greater than that from self-employment as well as that from other economic activities (again a three-way division). All other households will be classified under “others” (OTH).

For urban areas the different urban types correspond to four sources of household income, unlike the rural sector where five sources are considered. An urban household will be assigned the type SE, RWS, CL or OTH corresponding to the major source of its income from economic activities during the last 365 days. A household which does not have any income from economic activities will be classified under “others” (OTH).

For the rural areas, the selected household will be assigned appropriate type code out of the following five different household type codes:
self-employed in non-agriculture … 1
self-employed in agriculture ....….. 4
agricultural labour .....................…… 2
others ...................................…...... 9
other labour ……………………… 3

For urban areas, the household type codes are as follows:
self-employed ……………… 1
casual labour …………........... 3
regular wage/salary earning….. 2
others …...........………….…... 9

A household, which does not have any income from economic activities, will get type code 9 (others).