Occupational structure in a country depends on a number of economic, technological and geographical factors.
1. Geographical Factors:
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After various sources of energy were discovered and rapid improvements were made in the capital equipment used in industries, the importance of factors like the fertility of soil, climate and availability of minerals declined in determining the occupations of the people.
In India, they are still important and people have to choose occupations within the constraints of available natural resources.
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2. Development of Productive Forces:
Occupational structure in any country depends to a large extent on the development of productive forces. As long as productive forces do not develop adequately and technology does not acquire sophistication, productivity of labour remains low and, consequently, a large part of the labour force engages itself in the production of food articles. This is precisely the problem of most underdeveloped countries, including India.
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3. Division of labour and Specialisation:
Continuous development of productive forces creates conditions for increasingly complex division of labour. With the introduction of division of labour in production, labour productivity rises and transfer of population from primary industries to secondary and tertiary industries takes place.
This is inevitable because of the following two reasons firstly, because in any economy based on division of labour, all people need not produce food for themselves and secondly, because the demand for food articles is relatively inelastic and as productivity rises it can be met by the production done by a lesser number of people.
4. Level of Per Capita Income:
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The per capita income of a country has a great bearing on the occupational distribution of population. In all the countries where per capita income is low, a substantially large portion of the national income is spent on goods produced in the primary sector. As such, sizable labour force in these countries remains employed in agriculture, animal husbandry, fishery and forestry.
When growth takes place and per capita income rises, demand for manufactured goods increases and in its response their output is also expanded. This creates more jobs in the secondary sector. India’s per capita income is one of the lowest in the world.
5. Changing Structure:
It is an utmost necessity that a large part of the workers in the agricultural sector be transferred to industrial and service sectors. The argument for the transference of workers from agriculture is that, it will raise Ike productivity per worker. Hence, the quicker the pace of such transference, the belter it is.
Since productivity per head in industries and services is generally higher than in agriculture, such transference of workers from low to high productivity sectors will result in higher national productivity per head resulting in an increase in total production. Besides, there will be diversification in economic activities.
As a consequence of these developments, national income will rise, and if the rate of population growth remains within reasonable limits, per capita income will also rise. The occupational structure as a reflector of these changes will undergo desirable changes.