CLASS 9 - ECONOMICS - PEOPLE AS RESOURCE

 Class 9 Important Questions 

People as Resource 

Very Short Answer Type Questions

Question 1.
What is human capital?
Answer:
Human capital is the stock of skilled and productive work force of a nation.

Question 2.
How can the population of a nation becomes human capital?
Answer:
Population of a nation becomes human capital through education, training and medical care.

Question 3.
Which type of investment is known as human capital investment?
Answer:
The investment made in the form of education, training and medical care is known as human capital investment.

Question 4.
How is human capital superior to other resources?
Or
Why is human resource considered to be the best resource? Explain.
Answer:
Human capital can make use of land and capital for further production, whereas land and capital cannot become useful on its own.

Question 5.
Name any four factors which can improve the quality of human resources.
Answer:

• Education,
• Health,
• Training,
• Technology.

Question 6.
Mention any four factors on which the quality of population depends.
Answer:

• Literacy rate,
• Health,
• Life expectancy,
• Skill.

Question 7.
‘Countries like Japan did not have any natural resources, still they are developed countries.’Give reasons.
Answer:

• They have invested on people especially in the field of education and health.
• The skilled and trained people have made efficient use of other resources like land and capital. Efficiency and technology evolved by people have made these countries rich/developed.

Question 8.
The various economic activities have been classified into three sectors? What are these sectors?
Answer:

• Primary,
• Secondary,
• Tertiary.

Question 9.
Give two examples of primary sector.
Answer:

• Agriculture,
• Foresty.

Question 10.
Which sector (in the primary sector) is the most labour absorbing sector of the economy? ‘
Answer:
Agriculture.

Question 11.
Give two examples of secondary sector.
Answer:

• Manufacturing of cloth.
• Manufacturing of car.

Question 12.
A person is making envelopes with the help of papers. In which sector his activity be included?
Answer:
Secondary sector

Question 13.
Give two examples of tertiary sector.
Answer:

• Trace,
• Transportation.

Question 14.
What are market activities?
Answer:
The activities which involve remuneration to anyone who performs, i.e., activities performed for pay or profit. For example, growing of cotton by a farmer.

Question 15.
What are determinants of the earning of any individual in the1’ market? ‘
Answer:

• Education,
• Skill.

Question 16.
State an example of a non-market activity.
Or
Give an example of a non-economic activity.
Answer:
A mother cooking food for her family.

Question 17.
What is the term used for production for self-consumption?
Answer:
Non-market activity.

Question 18.
What are non-market activities?
Answer:
These are activities which are performed for self consumption. For example, growing of wheat by a farmer.

Question 19.
What is infant mortality rate?
Answer:
Infant mortality rate is the death of a child under one year of age.

Question 20.
What is birth rate?
Answer:
Birth rate is the number of babies bom there for every 1000 people during a particular period of time.

Question 21.
What is death rate?
Answer:
Death rate is the number of people per 1000 who die during a particular period of time.

Question 22.
What does increase in unemployment indicate?
Answer:
Depressed economy.

Question 23.
What is the most labour absorbing sector of economy?
Answer:
Agriculture.

Question 24.
In which sector is disguised unemployment mostly found?
Answer:
Agriculture sector.

Question 25.
What is meant by seasonal unemployment?
Answer:
Seasonal unemployment happens when people are not able to find jobs during some months of the year. For example, workers working in sugar mills get employment only for four or five months in a year.

Question 26.
State the two types of unemployment existing in rural India.
Answer:
Seasonal and disguised unemployment.

Question 27.
What name has been given to the unemployment when people do not find job dining some months of a year?
Answer:
Seasonal unemployment.

Question 28.
A work requires the services of five people but engages eight people. Which type of unemployment is this?
Answer:
Disguised unemployment.

Question 29.
What type of unemployment is found in agriculture? Mention any one feature of this type of unemployment. HOTS
Answer:
Disguised unemployment is found in agriculture.
Under this, people appear to be employed, but actually they are not.

Question 30.
How unemployment problem differs in rural areas?
Answer:
In case of rural areas there is seasonal and disguised unemployment whereas urban areas have educated unemployment

Question 31.
Which type of unemployment is common in urban areas?
Or
Which type of unemployment is found in urban areas?
Answer:
Educated unemployment.

Question 32.
Which Asian country invested the most part of resources on people, the especially in the field of education and health?
Answer:
Japan.

Question 33.
What do you call shifting of labourers from rural area to urban area in search of work?
Answer:
Migration.

Question 34.
‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’ is a significant step towards providing elementary education to all children of which age group?
Answer:
6-14 years.

Short Answer Type Questions

Question 1.
How has human capital formation helped India?
Answer:

• It increases people’s level of productivity and efficiency as well as the productive power of the country.
• It has added to skilled labour force of India.
• Millions of skilled workers are working in other countries. They earn foreign exchange for us.

Question 2.
How is human resource different from other factors of production? Explain it in three points.
Answer:

• It is living active factor of production.
• It extracts work and activates other factors.
• It works as labour, management and entrepreneur.

Question 3.
Which is the most labour absorbing sector of the Indian economy? What trend has been recently noticed in terms of dependence of population on this sector and what is the reason for that?
Answer:

• Agriculture is the most labour absorbing sector of the Indian economy.
• In recent years, there has been a decline in dependence of population on agriculture. This decline is mainly due to:
  • Disguised unemployment.
  • Surplus labour in agriculture has moved to either the Secondary or Tertiary Sector.

Question 4.
“Employment structure is characterised by self-employment in the primary sector.” Explain the statement.
Answer:

• The whole family contributes in the field even though not everybody is really needed. So, there is disguised unemployment in the agriculture sector.
• All the family also have a share in what has been produced.
• The concept of sharing of work in the field and the produce raised reduces the hardship of unemployment in the rural areas. But, this does not reduce the poverty of the family.

Question 5.
Explain the ways of investment of Human Resources that can give high returns in future.
Answer:
Three ways of investment in development of Human Resource are:

• Through Education.
• Through Medical Care.
• New technology.
• Providing training to use new technology. ,
• They can discover new methods of increasing production.
• Acquired knowledge is well-invested in new fields like IT.

Question 6.
How are working conditions for women in unorganised sector different from those in the organised sector? Explain.
Answer:

• The woman working in unorganised sector has lower wages than that in organised sector. This is because organised sector requires education and skill.
• Jobs are low paid and often not regular. Workers can be removed at any time without assigning reason. This is not the case in the organised sector.
• In unorganised sector, there is absence of basic facilities like maternity leaves, child care etc. while in the organise sector, these facilities are available.

Question 7.
Explain how investment in education creates the virtuous cycle of human development.
Or
What does a Virtuous cycle’ created by the educated parents mean? Explain. HOTS
Answer:

• A child, too, with investments made on her/ his education and health can yield a high return in future and contribute more to society.
• Educated parents invest more heavily on the education of their children.
• This is because, they realize the importance of education.
• They are also conscious of proper nutrition and hygiene.
• A virtuous cycle is, thus, created.

Question 8.
Why do educated parents invest more heavily on their children’s education? Give three reasons.
Answer:

• They realize the importance of education.
• They are conscious of proper nutrition and hygiene.
• Educated parents have more income as compared to illiterate parents.

Question 9.
Explain three problems of educated unemployment in urban areas.
Answer:
Problems:

• Many youth with matriculation, graduation and post-graduation degrees are not able to find job.
• Unemployment of graduate and post-graduate has increased faster than among matriculates.
• A paradoxical manpower situation is witnessed as surplus of manpower in certain categories co-exist with shortage of manpower in others.
• There is unemployment among technically qualified persons bn one hand while there is a dearth of technical skills.

Question 10.
What is seasonal unemployment? What are the factors responsible for seasonal unemployment?
Answer:
It is a type of unemployment in which a worker is employed during some months of the year (especially, during harvesting or the sowing season), anti remains without work during the rest of the year.
Factors:

• Lack of small-scale and cottage industries in rural areas.
• Lack of multiple cropping. .
• Lack of commercialisation of agriculture.

Question 11.
Can you suggest some measures in the education system to mitigate the problem of the educated unemployed?
Answer:

• Technical education should be provided.
• Vocational education should be introduced.
• Emphasis should be given to skill development.

Question 12.
Why will a firm not like to employ a worker having ill-health? How does it affect the working environment?
Answer:
(i) (a) The main objective of a firm is to maximise its profit. So, any firm would not like to employ a worker having ill-health because he/she may not work efficiently as a healthy worker due to ill-health,
(b) An unhealthy person becomes a liability for an organisation or the economy.
(ii) It affects the working environment adversely. An unhealthy person can infect healthy persons of the organisation also.

Question 13.
‘Improvement in the health status of the population has been the priority of a country.’ Give reasons.
Answer:

• Healthy citizens are the basic factors of production.
• The health of a person helps him to realise his potential, and the ability to fight illness.
• An unhealthy worker or person becomes a liability for the country.
• Good health increases the efficiency of the worker.

Question 14.
Explain any three consequences of unemployment.
Answer:

• Poverty: The basic cause of poverty is unemployment. People do not have enough money to support their family. Inability of educated people, who are willing to work to find gainful employment implies a great social waste.
• Increase in Dependent Population: Unemployment tends to increase the economic overload. The dependence of the unemployed on the working population increases.
• Poor Quality of Life: The quality of life of an individual as well as of the 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.

Question 15.
What are the two types of unemployment which are prevailing in rural areas? Write any four factors responsible for this. HOTS
Answer:
(i) Disguised unemployment,
(ii) Seasonal unemployment.
Causes:

• Large families due to overpopulation.
• Underdevelopment of cottage and small-scale industries.
• Lack of diversification of agriculture.
• Lack of capital.

Question 16.
Suggest some methods to remove rural unemployment problem.
Answer:

• By promoting small-scale and cottage industry.
• By spreading technical education.
• By promoting supplement works like animal rearing, horticulture etc.

Question 17.
What is disguised unemployment? Explain with the help of an example.
Answer:
It is a situation in which more workers are working in an activity than required. The people, who are actually engaged in such an activity appear to be employed, but are not fully employed. For example, if for the cultivation of one hectare land, 10 workers are required, but instead of 10 workers, 15 workers are working. In this case, 5 workers are disguised unemployed. In such cases, even if the surplus workers are removed the production does not suffer.

Question 18.
Distinguish between disguised unemployment and educated unemployment.
Answer:

S.No.	Disguised Unemployment	Educated Unemployment
(i)	Under this, people appear to be employed, but they are not.	Under this, people are educated, but are unable to find a job.
(ii)	It is mainly found in rural areas.	It is mainly found in urban areas.

Question 19.
Distinguish between market and non-market activities.
Answer:

Market	Non-market
(i) These involve remuneration, i.e., they are performed for pay or profit.	These activities are performed for self consumption.
(ii) Teacher teaching in a school, a worker working in a mine, a man working in a bank, etc. are some examples of market activities.	Subsistence farming, processing of primary products etc. are non-market activities.

Question 20.
What are the objectives of the 10th Five Year Plan with reference to education?
Answer:

• The 10th Five Year Plan endeavoured to increase the enrolment in higher education of the 18 to 23 year age group from the present 6 per cent to 9 per cent, by the end of the plan period,
• The strategy focuses on increasing access quality, adoption of states-specific curriculum modification, vocationalisation and networking on the use of information technology.
• The plan also focuses on distant education, convergence of formal, non-formal, distant and IT education institutions.

Long Answer Type Questions

Question 1.
What do you understand by Human Capital Formation? Highlight two initiatives each of Indian government to enhance health and education facilities.
Answer:
When the existing human resource is further developed by becoming more educated and healthy, human capital formation takes place. It adds to the productive power of the country. Just like the physical capital formation.
Following are the two schemes introduced by the government to enhance health facilities in India:

• Integrated child development services.
• Central government health schemes.

Following are the two schemes introduced by the government to enhance education facilities in India:

• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
• Mid-day meal scheme.

Question 2.
Why is human capital considered superior to other resources like land and physical capital? Name the factors that affect the quality of population. Explain, how these factors help in human capital formation?
Answer:
Factors affecting human capital formation are:

• It is living active factor of production.
• It extracts work and activates other factors.
• It works as labour, management and entrepreneur.

Factors affecting the quality of population are:

• Skill Formation: Skill formation increases the productivity of the workers.
• Health: A healthy worker is an asset for the company as well as society.
• Literacy Rate: Education widens the menial horizon of the citizens.

Question 3.
“People are the greatest resource that a country has.” Explain.
Or
Why is the human resource important for development? Explain.
Answer:

• It is a way of referring to a country’s working people in terms of their existing productive skills and abilities. Land, capital and natural resources etc. form the important resources of a country because these help in further production, but all these are useless if a country does not have human resource. It is a human resource which converts all the other sources into useful form.
• Countries like China, Japan etc. have achieved a high growth rate due to human capital.
• A skilled and trained person generates more than uneducated and unskilled worker.

Question 4.
How are children of educated parents different from those of uneducated parents? Give three points of difference.
Answer:

Children of Educated Parents	Children of Unedcated Parents
(i) These parents realise the importance of education. So, they are found to invest more heavily on the education of their children.	Uneducated parents often fail to realise the importance of education. They are seen reluctant to spend heavily on the education of their children.
(ii) They are conscious of proper nutrition and hygiene. So, they properly look after their children’s health and nutritional needs.	These parents are themselves uneducated and lacking in hygiene. So, they are not expected to properly look after their children’s health and hygiene needs.
(iii) Being better educated and healthy, these children are always expected to yield a high return in the future.	Their children are also not expected to receive higher education and yield a high return in the future.
(iv) Their earnings are higher and they provide greater contribution to society.	Their earnings are generally expected to be less and insufficient. So, their contribution to society is also likely to be lower.
(v) As educated parents better look after their children’s education and health, a virtuous cycle is created.	As these parents are found deficient in looking after their children’s health, hygienic condition form a vicious cycle. Their children also remain in a similarly disadvantaged state.

Question 5.
Mention any five steps which have been taken by the government to promote education. taken by the government to promote education.
Or
Explain the initiative taken by the government to improve elementary education in India.
Or
Give three measures taken by Government to improve literacy condition in India.
Answer:

(i) Government has launched various schemes for providing universal access, retention and quality in elementary education, with a special emphasis on girls.

(ii) There is also an establishment of pace setting of schools like the Novodaya Vidyalaya in each district.

(iii) Vocational streams have been developed to equip large number of high school students with occupations related to knowledge and skills.

(iv) Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is a significant step towards providing elementary education to all children in the age group of six to fourteen years by 2010. It is a time-bound initiative of the central government, in partnership with the states, the local government and the community for achieving the goal of universalisation of elementary education.

(v) The Right to Education act has been passed by the Indian Parliament to provide free and compulsory education of all children in the age group of 6 to 14 years.

Question 6.
How education and skill formation are the major determinants of the earning of any individual in the market? Explain.
Answer:

• Education and training lead to higher productivity.
• Earning capacity of an individual depends upon productivity.
• Education also leads to mobility of human resource. Many a time people migrate to other regions or countries in search of better opportunities. Farm labours are ill paid because of their low productivity.
  Countries like Japan and USA have high per capita income because of skill formation.

Question 7.
Mention any one advantage of education. How can an educated woman improve her family’s condition?
Answer:
The key to education is learning. A solid education gives us a base level of understanding that allows us to actively participate in intellectual conversations, and makes us aware and open minded in any situation. An educated woman improves her family’s condition in the following manner:

• An educated woman tends to desire a smaller family size and seek the health care necessary to do so.
• An educated woman has high educational and career expectations of her children, both boys and girls. For females, education profoundly changes their lives, how they interact with society, and their economic status.
  Educated women create more equitable lives for women and their families and increase their ability to participate in community decision-making and work towards achieving local sustainability goals.

Question 8.
Female literacy rate in India is still far behind that of the men. What are the reasons of it? Explain.
Answer:
Negative Atitude for Girls: The negative attitude of illiterate parents towards the girl child and her education is one of the major reason of low female literacy.
Poverty: Poverty is another root cause of low literacy rate for the girl child.
Gender Inequality: Gender inequality is still existing in most of the remote areas of India.
Inadequate School Facilities: Most parts of rural India still lacks basic facilities related to education.
Lack of Funds: Low allotment of government funds to education sector is another cause of low literacy rate.

Question 9.
Mention any three peculiarities of literacy in India.
Answer:

• The literacy rates have increased from about 18% in 1951 to around 73% in 2011.
• A vast difference is noticed across different sections of the population. Literacy among males is nearly 50% higher than females, and it is about 50% higher in urban areas as compared to the rural areas.
• Literacy rates vary from 96% in some districts of Kerala to below 30% in some parts of Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.
• According to the census of 2001, a person aged 7 years and above, who can read and write with understanding in any language is treated as literate.

Question 10.
Describe five main features of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
Or
Write a short note on ‘SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN.’
Answer:

• To strengthen the primary school system, the scheme of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) was started in 2001.
• All 6-14 age children were expected to complete eight years of schooling by 2010.
• It began as a time-bound initiative or programme of the Central Government in partnership with the state, the local government and the community to achieve the goal of universalisation of elementary education.
• This programme has covered the entire country with special focus on the educational needs of girls, SCs/STs and other children.
• Along with it, bridge courses and back-to-school camps were started to increase the enrolment in elementary education. The Mid-day Meal Scheme has been implemented to encourage attendance and retention of children as well as to improve their nutritional status.

Question 11.
What are the difference between the working conditions of educated and uneducated women? Mention any three of them.
Answer:

Uneducated Women	Educated Women
(i) Because of low skill formation, they are paid low wages as compared to men.	They are paid at par with the men.
(ii) Most of them work in unorganised sector where there is no job security, absence of basic facilities like maternity leave, child care and other social systems etc.	They work in the organised sector where they enjoy job security and other basic facilities like maternity leave, child care and other social security system etc.
(iii) Most of them work in the primary sector.	Most of them work in the secondary or tertiary sector.

Question 12.
Which two states in India have poor health facilities in comparison with others? State the ways by which health facilities in these states can be improved.
Answer:
Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Ways:

• Improving the accessibility of health care, family welfare.
• Ensuring nutritional service with a special focus on the under-privileged segment of population.
• Improving built up a vast health infrastructure and has developed man power required at primary, secondary and tertiary sector in Government as well as in the private sector.

Question 13.
Give an account of National Health Policy. Mention any five points.
Or
“Health should be treated as an important asset for human capital”. Analyse the statements with reference to our national health policy.
Answer:

• Improvement in the health status of the population has been the priority of the country.
• The National Health Policy 2002 aims at achieving an acceptable standard of health for the general population of the country.
• To achieve the objective, a comprehensive approach was advocated, which included improvements in individual health care, public health, sanitation, clean drinking water, access to food and knowledge of hygiene and feeding practices.
• The country has a well structured 3-tier public health infrastructure comprising Community Health Centres, Primary Health Centres and Sub-Centres spread across rural and semi-urban areas and tertiary medical care providing multi-speciality hospitals and medical colleges located almost exclusively in the urban areas.
• Over the last five decades India has built up a vast health infrastructure and has developed manpower required at primary, secondary and tertiary sector in Government as well as in the private sector.

Question 14.
Describe the provisions made by Indian government for the development of education and health care sector for the growth of society.
Answer:
Education:

• Education is one of the main factors of economic and social development.
• Education helps in increasing the mental horizon of the people, and is a must to develop human personality.
• Education helps in the development of science and technology.
• Education encourages economic development through greater participation of the people in the affairs of the country.
• Education increase the efficiency of the workers.
• It enhances the national income, cultural richness and increases the efficiency of governance.

Health:

• Health does not mean survival only. It involves not only the physical fitness of the individual but also his mental, economic and social well-being.
• Good health increases the efficiency of a worker.
• Good health increases the learning capacity of a worker.
• A healthy worker is an assest for the firm as well as for the country.

Question 15.
What are the major factors responsible for unemployment in India?
Answer:

• Rapid Growth of Population: Our population has been continuously rising. From a population of about 361 million in 1951, it has risen to around 1210.2 million in 2011, but due to slow economic growth employment opportunities have not risen at the same pace.
• Overdependence on Agriculture: Even after more than 50 years of independence, more than 60% of our population still depends upon the primary sector for its livelihood.
• Underdevelopment of Cottage and Small-scale Industry: Our
  rural sector is facing problems of disguised and seasonal unemployment. This is due to underdevelopment of the cottage and the small-scale industry.
• Underdevelopment of Industries: Due to the shortage of capital and other essential inputs, the industrialisation process is very slow. So the industrial sector has failed to provide enough job opportunities to the unemployed workers.
• Slow pace of Infrastructure Growth: Slow pace of infrastructure growth is one of the major factors responsible for the slow growth of Indian economy.

Question 16.
What is unemployment? What kind of unemployment found in India? Explain any two of them.
Answer:
It is a situation under which worker is ready to work at the prevailing wages but he/she is unable to find any useful work.

• Disguised unemployment
• Seasonal unemployment
• Structural unemployment
• Technical unemployment

Disguised Unemployment:

• It is a type of unemployment under which people appear to be employed, but actually they are not.
• It is mostly found in agriculture.
• It is mainly found in rural areas.

Seasonal Unemployment:

• It is a type of unemployment under which workers are employed only for a particular season.
• It is mostly found in agro based industries.
• It is found both in rural as well as urban areas.

Question 17.
What are the disadvantages of unemployment? Explain.
Or
“Unemployment leads to a depressed economy.” Justify the statement with five arguments.
Answer:

• Wastage of Resource: Human capital is one of the most important resources. Unemployment leads to wastage of manpower resource. People who are an asset for the economy turn into a liability.
  There is a feeling of hopelessness and despair among the youth.
• Poverty: The basic cause of poverty is unemployment. People do not have enough money to support their family. Inability of educated people, who are willing to work to find gainful employment implies a great social waste.
• Increase in Dependent Population: Unemployment tends to increase the economic overload. The dependence of the unemployed on the working population increases.
• Poor Quality of Life: The quality of life of an individual as well as of the 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.
• Class Struggle: Unemployment divides the society into haves and have-nots. Accordingly, there is class conflict that compounds the problem of social turmoil.

Question 18.
Explain any five effects of unemployment on the overall growth of an economy.
Answer:
The unemployment has detrimental impacts on the overall growth of an economy.

• It is wastage of man power resource.
• It increases the economic overload.
• It tends to increase the number of dependant population.
• Increase in unemployment is an indicator of a depressed economy.
• It can lead to emotional and mental stress.