Main workers, Marginal workers, Non-workers and those marginal workers, non-workers seeking/available for work classified by age and sex, Census 2011 - India and States

Those workers who had worked for the major part of the reference period (i.e. 6 months or more) are termed as Main Workers. Those workers who had not worked for the major part of the reference period (i.e. less than 6 months) are termed as Marginal Workers. A person who did not at all work during the reference period was treated as non-worker. The non-workers broadly constitute Students who did not participate in any economic activity paid or unpaid, household duties who were attending to daily household chores like cooking, cleaning utensils, looking after children, fetching water etc. and are not even helping in the unpaid work in the family form or cultivation or milching, dependant such as infants or very elderly people not included in the category of worker, pensioners those who are drawing pension after retirement and are not engaged in any economic activity. Beggars, vagrants, prostitutes and persons having unidentified source of income and with unspecified sources of subsistence and not engaged in any economically productive work during the reference period. Others, this category includes all Non-workers who may not come under the above categories such as rentiers, persons living on remittances, agricultural or non-agricultural royalty, convicts in jails or inmates of penal, mental or charitable institutions doing no paid or unpaid work and persons who are seeking/available for work. Work is defined as participation in any economically productive activity with or without compensation, wages or profit. Such participation may be physical and/or mental in nature. Work involves not only actual work but also includes effective supervision and direction of work. It even includes part time help or unpaid work on farm, family enterprise or in any other economic activity.