NCERT Class 9 Economics Chapter 2 - People as Resource

Chapter 2 - People as Resource

Question 1: What do you understand by “people as resource”?
Answer: 'People as Resource' is a way of referring to a country’s working people in terms of their existing productive skills and abilities.

Question 2: What are the various activities undertaken in the primary sector, secondary sector and tertiary sector?
Answer: The various activities have been classified into three main sectors i.e., primary, secondary and tertiary.
• Primary sector includes agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishing, poultry farming, mining and quarrying.
• Manufacturing is included in the secondary sector.
• Trade, transport, communication, banking, education, health, tourism, services, insurance, etc. are included in the tertiary sector.

Question 3: How is virtuous cycle created?
Answer:
• Educated parents are found to invest more heavily on the education of their child. This is because they have realised the importance of education for themselves.
• They are also conscious of proper nutrition and hygiene.
• They accordingly look after their children’s needs for education at school and good health.
• A virtuous cycle is, thus, created in this case.

Question 4: How is vicious cycle created?
Answer: In contrast, a vicious cycle may be created by disadvantaged parents, who themselves uneducated and lacking in hygiene, keep their children in a similarly disadvantaged state.

Question 5: How did countries like Japan become rich and developed?
Answer:
• Countries like Japan did not have any natural resources.
• They imported the natural resources needed in their country.
• They have invested on people, especially in the field of education and health.
• These people have made efficient use of other resources, like land and capital.
• Efficiency and the technology evolved by people have made these countries rich and developed.

Question 6: Why are women employed in low wages?
Answer:
• Education and skill are the major determinants of the earning of any individual in the market. A majority of women have meagre education and low skill formation.
• Women are paid low compared to men.
• Most women work where job security is not there.

Question 7: How will you explain the term unemployment?
Answer: Unemployment is said to exist when people who are willing to work at the going wages cannot find jobs.

Question 8: What is the difference between disguished unemployment and seasonal unemployment?
Answer:
• Seasonal unemployment happens when people are not able to find jobs during some months of the year.
• People dependant upon agriculture usually face such kind of problem.
• There are certain busy seasons when sowing, harvesting, weeding and threshing is done. Certain months do not provide much work to the people dependant on agriculture.
• In case of disguised unemployment people appear to be employed. They have agricultural plot where they find work. This usually happens among family members engaged in agricultural activity.
• The work requires the service of five people but engages eight people. Three people are extra. These three people also work in the same plot as the others.
• The contribution made by the three extra people does not add to the contribution made by the five people. If three people are removed the productivity of the field will not decline. The field requires the service of five people and the three extra people are disguised unemployed.

Question 9: Why is educated unemployment, a peculiar problem in India?
Answer:
• In case of urban areas educated unemployment has become a common phenomenon. Many youth with matriculation, graduation and post-graduation degrees are not able to find job.
• A paradoxical manpower situation is witnessed as surplus of manpower in certain categories coexist with shortage of manpower in others.
• There is unemployment among technically qualified person on one hand, while there is a dearth of technical skills required for economic growth.

Question 10: How is human resource different from other resources like land and physical capital?
Answer: Human resource is different in the following ways:
• Land and other resources are fixed, limited and specified whereas human resource can be nurtured through education and health.
• Human resource can bring a change in other resources whereas other resources cannot change or affect human resource.
• Human resource can make use of land and physical capital whereas land and physical capital cannot become useful on its own.

Question 11: What is the difference between economic and non-economic activities?
Answer:
• Economic activities
→ It refers to a human capital related to production and consumption of goods and services for economic gain.
→ These are measured in monetary terms.
→ These activities add value to the national income.
• Non-economic activities
→ It is an activity performed gladly, with the aim of providing serves to others without any regard to monetary gain.
→ These do not add any value to the national income as these are only for self-consumption.
→ These are not measured in monetary terms.

Question 12: What is the role of education in human capital formation?
Answer:
• Education is the fourth necessity for man after food, clothing and water. Education plays an important role in developing human resources and improves quality of life.
• It provides knowledge skill to people and enables them to earn higher income and improves their standard of living.
• Education improves the level of understanding technical knowledge and increase the efficiency and productivity level and enhances national income.
• Education generates consciousness towards the nation and society.
• It enhances the cultural richness of the country.

Question 13: "Unemployment has detrimental impact on the overall growth of an economy". Explain the statement.
Answer:
• Unemployment leads to wastage of manpower resource. People who are an asset for the economy turn into a liability.
• Inability of educated people who are willing to work to find gainful employment implies a great social waste.
• Unemployment tends to increase economic overload. The dependence of the unemployed on the working population increases.
• The quality of life of an individual as well as of society is adversely affected. When a family has to live on a bare subsistence level there is a general decline in its health status and rising withdrawal from the school system.
Hence, unemployment has detrimental impact on the overall growth of an economy.