Wage
Topic: Employment, Unemployment and Informalisation · NCERT: Class 6, Ch 13 "The Value of Work"; Class 8, Ch 7 "Factors of Production"; Class 9, Ch 8 "Building Blocks in Economics: The Problem of Choice"
Meaning
A wage is a payment made by an employer to a worker for a specific period of work, such as an hour, a day or a week. It is the reward for labour as a factor of production. Wages are common in casual and manual work, where the pay depends on the days actually worked.
Example
A mason on a building site gets a fixed amount at the end of each day's work. That is a daily wage. If they do not work on a day, they are not paid for it.
Don't confuse with
- Salary: fixed regular pay, usually monthly, that does not depend on the exact number of days worked.
- Fee: paid by a client for a professional service, such as a lawyer's advice, not by an employer for time worked.
Related concepts
- Economic activities
- Worker
- Workforce
- Salary
- Payment in kind
- Fee
- Employee
- Employer
- Work from home
- Moonlighting