Muslim literacy rates rising faster than work participation

Among India’s minorities, the literacy rate of Muslims showed the biggest increase of 9.4 percentage points, from 59.1 per cent in 2001 to 68.5 per cent in 2011, according to data provided by the minority affairs ministry in the Lok Sabha on July 21. However, the rate of work participation of Indian Muslims is the lowest among all minorities, although it has been improving over the past 10 years. Minorities have “shown considerable improvement in terms of literacy rates and work participation ratio over a decade as per Census 2011”, the ministry said. ‘Work participation rate’ is defined as percentage of the total workers to the total population. Among all religious communities in India, Muslims have the lowest share of working people, at about 33 per cent, against the nationwide work participation rate of 40 per cent. Despite improvement, Muslims (14.4 per cent of the population) still lag other communities with a literacy rate of 68.5 per cent, compared to Hindus (73.3 per cent), Christians (84.5 per cent), Sikhs (75.4 per cent) and Jains (94.9 per cent), according to the Census.