Own-account worker
Also called: Own account worker · Topic: Employment, Unemployment and Informalisation · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
An own-account worker is a self-employed person who runs their own small business or farm alone, without hiring regular workers. Family members may help, unpaid. In the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), it is one of three groups inside the "self-employed" category. The other two are employers and unpaid helpers in household enterprises. Self-employment was about 58.4% of India's workforce in 2023-24, so this group matters. Own-account work is often small-scale, low-paid and has no social security such as provident fund or pension. Many own-account workers are working poor: they have work, but earn too little to lift their household above the poverty line.
Example
A vegetable seller who runs her own cart in Pune and buys and sells her own stock is an own-account worker. So is a marginal farmer who cultivates his own plot of under 1 hectare with only his family's help. Neither of them hires anyone.
Don't confuse with
- Employer: also self-employed, but hires other workers. An own-account worker hires no one.
- Unpaid helper in a household enterprise: works in a relative's business without earnings of their own. The own-account worker is the person who runs the enterprise and keeps its income.