Overview: Taking Stock
3
Employment elasticitymeasures the rate at
which employment growth responds toGDP
growth (Table 1.2). In the mid-seventies,
one unit of growth in GDP resulted in 0.57
unit of growth in employment. In the period
from 2004–09, the employment elasticity
drastically declined to 0.01 units. Between
2009–12 and then between 2012–14, there
was a continuing recovery in employment
elasticity to 0.18 and 0.22 respectively. The
implication is that economic growth does not
automatically translate into jobs.
Table 1.3:
Progress of actions under millennium development goals
Millennium development targets
State of progress
Poverty and Hunger
Target 1: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less
than one dollar a day
On track
Target 2: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger Slow off-track
Universal Primary Education
Target 3: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to
complete a full course of primary schooling
Moderately on-track
Gender Equality and Empowerment
Target 4: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by
2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015
On track
Child mortality reduction
Target 5: Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the Under- Five Morality Rate
Moderately on-track
Maternal health improvement
Target 6: Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio Slow off-track
HIV/AIDS and disease control
Target 7: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
On-track
Target 8: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other
major diseases
Moderately on-track
Table 1.2:
Employment elasticity over the years
Year
Employment growth (CAGR)
GDP growth (CAGR)
Employment elasticity
1972–73 to 1977–78
2.6
4.6
0.57
1977–78 to 1983
2.1
3.9
0.54
1983 to 1988–87
1.7
4.0
0.42
1988–87 to 1993–94
2.4
5.6
0.43
1993–94 to 1999–2000
1.0
6.8
0.15
1999–2000 to 2004–05
2.8
5.7
0.50
2004–05 to 2009–10
0.1
8.7
0.01
2009–10 to 2011–12
1.4
7.4
0.18
Source:
Sangita Mishra and Anup K. Suresh. June 2014. Estimating Employment Elasticity of Growth for the Indian
Economy. RBI Working Paper Series. DEAR, RBI.
Quality of livelihoods
On theHumanDevelopment Index (HDI)—
which is a qualitative measurement of liveli-
hoods situation—the country has not made
toomuch progress in terms of its global rank-
ing. It continued to rank at 135 out of a total
of 187 countries. However, there have been
significant improvements reported in several
areas related to theMillenniumDevelopment
Goals [MDGs, (Table 1.3)]. The poverty
head count ratio declined to 21.9 per cent
(Continued)
