India - Employment and Unemployment, July 2004 - June 2005, NSS 61st Round

In the 61st round survey, a stratified multi-stage sampling design was adopted for selection of the sample units for rural as well as urban areas. The first stage units (FSUs) were the census villages (panchayat wards for Kerala) for rural areas and the NSSO Urban Frame Survey (UFS) blocks for urban areas. The ultimate stage units (USUs) were the households for both rural and urban areas. Hamlet-groups/sub-blocks constituted the intermediate stage whenever these were formed in the sample FSUs. For rural areas, the list of 2001 census villages constitut ed the sampling frame for selection of sample FSUs for most of the states. For the rural areas of Kerala, however, the list of panchayat wards was used as the sampling frame for selection of panchayat wards. For the urban areas, the latest lists of UFS blocks constituted the sampling frame for selection of sample FSUs.
Within each district of a State/UT, two separate basic strata were formed for rural areas and urban areas. All rural areas of the district comprised rural stratum and all the urban areas of the district comprised urban stratum.

At the all-India level, a total number of 12788 FSU’s (8128 villages and 4660 urban blocks) was allocated for the survey and this was allocated to the different States and UTs in proportion to population as per census 2001 which was then allocated between rural and urban sectors in proportion to population as per population census 2001 with 1.5 weightage to urban sector. Within each of the rural and urban sectors of a State/UT, the respective sample size was allocated to the different strata in proportion to the stratum population as per census 2001.

Within a district, if ‘r’ number of FSUs were allocated for a rural stratum, a total number of ‘r/2’ sub-strata were formed within that rural stratum. From each sub-stratum of the rural stratum of a district, two FSUs were selected with probability proportional to size with replacement (PPSWR), size being the population as per Population Census 2001. Within a district, if ‘u’ number of FSUs were allocated for a urban stratum, a total number of ‘u/2’ sub-strata were formed within that urban stratum. From each sub-stratum of the urban stratum of a district, two FSUs were selected with simple random sampling without replacement (SRSWOR). Within each sub-stratum, samples were drawn in the form of two independent sub-samples in both the rural and urban sectors. All households listed in the selected village/block/ hamlet-groups/sub-blocks were stratified into three second stage strata (SSS). A total of 10 households were selected from each sample village/block for canvassing the employment and un-employment schedule. The sample households from each of the second stage strata were selected by SRSWOR.

Out of the total number of 12788 FSU’s (8128 villages and 4660 urban blocks) selected for survey for the central sample, 12601 FSU’s (7999 villages and 4602 urban blocks) could be surveyed at the all-India level for canvassing Schedule 10. The number of households surveyed was 1,24,680 (79,306 in rural areas and 45,374 in urban areas) and number of persons surveyed was 6,02,833 (3,98,025 in rural areas and 2,04,808 in urban areas).