Page 2 - Lessonnote_ Change and Development in Industrial Society

➢ Industrialisation leads to greater equality, at least in some spheres. For example, caste
distinctions do not matter any more on trains, buses or in cyber cafes.

➢ On the other hand, older forms of discrimination may persist even in new factory or
workplace settings. And even as social inequalities are reducing, economic or income
inequality is growing in the world.
➢ Often social inequality and income inequality overlap, for example, in the domination of
upper caste men in well-paying professions like medicine, law or journalism. Women often
get paid less than men for similar work.
Industrialisation and Modernisation

❖ While the early sociologists saw industrialisation as both positive and negative, by the mid
-20th century, under the influence of modernisation theory, industrialisation came to be
seen as inevitable and positive.
❖ Modernisation theory argues that societies are at different stages on the road to
modernisation, but they are all heading in the same direction. Modern society, for these
theorists, is represented by the West.

INDUSTRIALISATION IN INDIA
The Specificity of Indian Industrialisation

The experience of industrialisation in India is similar to the western model and in many ways
different. Comparative analysis of different countries suggests that there is no standard
model of industrial capitalism.

One point of difference is relating to what kind of work people are doing.

• In developed countries, the majority of people are in the services sector, followed by
industry and less than 10% are in agriculture (ILO figures). In India, in 1999-2000, nearly
60% were employed in the primary sector (agriculture and mining), 17% in the secondary
sector (manufacturing, construction and utilities), and 23% in the tertiary sector (trade,
transport, financial services etc.)
• The contribution of these sectors to economic growth, the share of agriculture has
declined sharply, and services contribute approximately more than half. This is a very
serious situation because it means that the sector where the maximum people are
employed is not able to generate much income for them.

Second point of difference is the number of people in regular salaried employment.
In developed countries, the majority are formally employed. In India, over 50% of the
population is self-employed, only about 14% are in regular salaried employment, while
approximately 30% are in casual labour.