Inter‐Occupation Differences In The Pattern Of Monetized And Non‐Monetized Consumer Expenditure In Rural India

This study attempts to examine the inter‐occupational differences in the patterns of cash and in‐kind expenditure in rural India on the basis of a special tabulation of The National Sample Survey (NSS), 18th round (February 1963‐January 1964) consumer expenditure data. The occupational groups considered here are (i) cultivators, (ii) agricultural labourers, (iii) other agriculture, and (iv) non‐agricultural occupations. The analysis is carried out primarily in terms of curves relating item‐specific cash/kind expenditure to total cash/total kind expenditure for fifteen selected item‐groups of expenditure. For each item‐occupation combination, four two‐parameter forms of Engel curve together with the log‐log‐inverse form are estimated and the comparisons across occupation groups are made separately on the basis of each of the two‐parameter curve forms which were found to give the best fit for at least one occupation group as well as the log‐log‐inverse form, using analysis of covariance technique. The results indicate that so far as the cash components of item expenditures are concerned, the pattern of expenditure is considerably influenced by occupational factors. It is observed that cultivators have a cash expenditure pattern different from those of agrictural labourers and of households with non‐agricultural activities. The comparison of the kind expenditure patterns does not, however, reflect any clear picture primarily because in most cases the itemwise kind expenditure functions could not be estimated satisfactorily. This analysis also suggests that the specification of itemwise cash and kind expenditure functions employed here may not be the most satisfactory ones in an economy with a high degree of non‐monetization and therefore alternative specifications need be examined.