Unpaid family worker
Also called: Helper in household enterprise · Topic: Employment, Unemployment and Informalisation · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
An unpaid family worker is someone who helps in a household enterprise run by a relative, such as a family farm or shop, without regular pay. Surveys count such helpers as workers, within the self-employed category, because their work adds to GNP. Many women and young people work this way. So a rise in self-employment can partly be a rise in unpaid helpers, not in thriving businesses.
Example
Meena, a housewife, helps in her husband's cloth shop without a salary. She counts as a worker for her shop work. Raj, a schoolboy who works on the family farm after school, is also a worker.
Don't confuse with
- Unpaid domestic work: cooking, cleaning and childcare at home are not counted as economic activity. Meena's housework alone would not make her a worker. Her shop work does.