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Division of Labour: Meaning, Forms and other Details!
By division of labour we mean an arrangement whereby people perform different functions at the same time. Though the term ‘Division of Labour’ refers only to labour and is applied in the field of economics, yet in fact division of labour in modern society is not limited simply to labour but applies to all the factors of production and exists beyond the purely economic field.
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There may be three forms of division of labour:
(i) Social Division of Labour:
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This means division into occupations. Thus, there are farmers, carpenters, weavers, teachers, priests, soldiers etc.
(ii) Technical Division of Labour:
This means division of labour within a particular enterprise Thus, within .a factory there are weavers, spinners, designers, accountants, manager and engineers. The work may be divided into complete tasks like spinning, weaving, bleaching, designing, finishing etc. or it may be divided into incomplete processes. It is said that making a pin in a modern factory is divided into 18 processes. Technical division of labour is a marked feature of the modern machine age.
(iii) Territorial Division of Labour:
This is also known as localization of industries. Certain places or regions come to specialize in the making of certain articles e.g., hosiery at Ludhiana, cotton textiles at Ahmadabad and Bombay, jute industry at Calcutta, leather industry at Agra and Kanpur etc.
Division of labour is based on the principle of cooperation or interdependence:
The different persons among whom the work is divided cooperate in the production of a thing, for example, to make a chair, one group is engaged in making legs, another in making backs, another seats and still another joins them, and finally, there is a group of workers polishing the chairs. All of them cooperate and through their cooperation a chair is made. Division of labour is both a dissociating and integrating social principle.
Division of labour is found in all societies:
In the earlier societies marked by handicraft economy it was a simple division of labour. The society in those days was a simple organisation based upon primary group relationships. Such a society neither needs nor permits a wide range of economic specialization. Economy was of a self sufficient type. There were little need for supervision and authority.
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In modern machine age division of labour is a complicated phenomenon:
Now there are thousands of workers in an industry to perform different specialized tasks in order to produce, say, a pair of shoes. A line of command is necessary to ensure that all these workers perform their individual tasks in an integrated manner.