Main Worker UPSC relevant
A main worker is a person who worked for the major part of the reference period — that is, six months (183 days) or more in the year preceding enumeration — in any economically productive activity.
Main workers are further classified by category of work: cultivators, agricultural labourers, household industry workers, and 'other workers'. The main/marginal split is the census's way of separating stable employment from intermittent or seasonal work, and it feeds indicators used elsewhere in the system — for example, the census-town test requires 75 per cent of male main workers to be in non-agricultural pursuits.
Census 2027's Household Schedule retains questions on economic activity, so 2011-comparable main-worker tabulations by sex, age and now caste are expected from the February 2027 enumeration.