Explain the difference between Usual Principal Status (UPS), Usual Status Adjusted for Subsidiary Activity (UPSS), and Current Weekly Status (CWS) in PLFS.
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- Sep 11
- 2 min read
Explain the difference between Usual Principal Status (UPS), Usual Status Adjusted for Subsidiary Activity (UPSS), and Current Weekly Status (CWS) in PLFS.
Answer:
The PLFS measures employment using different reference periods:
Usual Principal Status (UPS):
Reference period = 365 days (last one year).
A person is classified by their principal activity if they spent majority of the year (≥183 days) in it.
Example: If someone farmed for 200 days and was unemployed for 165 days → they are counted as employed under UPS.
Usual Status Adjusted for Subsidiary Activity (UPSS):
Reference period = 365 days (last one year).
Adds subsidiary work (occasional but significant work of ≥30 days).
Example: A woman primarily a homemaker but who worked on family farm for 45 days → she will be counted as employed under UPSS.
Current Weekly Status (CWS):
Reference period = 7 days (last one week).
A person is considered employed if they worked for at least 1 hour on at least 1 day during the week.
Example: A delivery worker who did 2 shifts in a week → counted as employed under CWS.
👉 These three indicators provide complementary perspectives: UPS is long-term, UPSS captures occasional work, and CWS reflects short-term employment.
Cross-question:
Which indicator is more appropriate to measure disguised unemployment?
Disguised unemployment = More workers are engaged in a task than actually needed, common in agriculture.
UPS/UPSS may overestimate employment in such cases, because they classify anyone engaged for ≥30 days as employed.
CWS is slightly better for detecting underemployment, since it looks at shorter reference periods (7 days).
👉 However, none of these perfectly captures disguised unemployment, because they only measure presence of work, not productivity of work. Additional productivity-based surveys would be needed for a true picture.
