Class 6 Social Science Chapter 13: The Value of Work

A conversation in a park

Anu and Kabir are playing when they see their neighbour get out of a taxi. She is in uniform, coming home from work. That single sight starts the whole chapter off, because it makes the two children begin listing what everybody around them does.

Geeta Aunty

She is a pilot in the Indian Air Force, and the chapter says the whole town is proud of her. Kabir notices something small but useful: her uniform looks a great deal like one he saw at Anu's house the day before. The shape is much the same. Only the colour tells them apart.

The uniform on the hanger

That other uniform belongs to Kabir's grandfather. He left the Border Security Force on retirement, so the uniform is no longer worn. What he does with his days now is the interesting part.

What a retired man does all day

Three things, and the chapter names each of them. He gives free Geography classes to the children of the neighbourhood. He tends the family's vegetable garden. And he runs errands for the house. Nobody pays him a rupee for any of it, and all three are plainly work.

Anu's parents

They keep a shop stocked with uniforms and other ready-made clothing. Her father leaves early in the morning to open it. Her mother joins him there after the children have left for school.

And what her mother does after that

She is usually home again by the time the children get back. She also gives her time to a voluntary group teaching stitching to women nearby. That is a second kind of work altogether, and she does both.

Rohan

Anu's elder brother is a software engineer at a company that makes computer applications. Kabir has met him once, when he came to collect Anu from school. He is paid for that work.

What Rohan does at weekends

He volunteers with a youth development programme run by a nearby college, teaching computer skills to the people who have joined it. Like his mother, he does one sort of work on weekdays and quite another at the weekend.

Kabir's reaction

He says what any reader would say at this point. Everybody around them does so many things every day. The list has grown long enough that it now needs sorting, and sorting is what the chapter turns to next. Until then it has only been collecting examples.

The sort the chapter makes

All these different activities are divided into two groups. The chapter calls them economic activities and non-economic activities. Every example above goes into one group or the other.

Where the line falls

It does not fall between easy work and hard work, and it does not fall between important work and unimportant work either. Flying an aircraft and teaching Geography for nothing are both demanding, and a case could be made for either one mattering more. Neither of those is the question being asked.

What the line actually is

It is money. An activity goes in the first group if money, or something worth money, changes hands because of it. Everything else goes in the second.

Sorting the story

Geeta Aunty is paid to fly. Anu's parents are paid for the garments they sell. Rohan is paid by his software company. The grandfather's Geography classes, the mother's stitching group and Rohan's weekend teaching are all unpaid.

Two things worth noticing

First, the same person can appear in both groups, as Rohan and Anu's mother both do; a person is not fixed to one side of the line. Second, nothing in the second group is being called less valuable by being put there. The chapter's own title is about the value of work, not about the price of it, and the rest of the chapter takes that difference seriously.

What comes next

The chapter now defines each group carefully, and gives the words that go with being paid: salary, fee, wage and one more. Those definitions are the subject of the next topic.

Scenario:

A class lists the people whose work it depends on in a single morning. The list reaches twenty-three names before the first lesson: a milk seller, a bus driver, a sweeper, a teacher, a cook at home. Meera notices that she had met only four of them. Their teacher asks who did the other nineteen jobs. They were done earlier, further away, or by somebody the children never see. The class sees that a morning rests on a great deal of work that leaves no trace in it. Rohit adds the one his list had missed at first, the cooking at home, which nobody had thought to count.

Analysis:

Twenty-three jobs before the first lesson, four of them visible. The work most easily left off the list was the one done inside the house.

Activity:

List everyone whose work you depended on this morning. Mark the ones you actually saw and count both totals.

Title:

Make your own version of the list

What You Notice:

Most lists of five people contain at least one person doing both kinds of work, and the unpaid item underlined is rarely the easiest one.

Safety:

None needed.

Kabir spots Geeta Aunty's uniform because he has seen a similar one at Anu's house. The colour is what tells them apart.

Kabir's grandfather has retired, but the chapter gives him three separate activities, all of them unpaid.

Anu's mother works in the family shop and teaches stitching in a voluntary group, so she appears in both groups.

The two groups — Follow the money, not the effort — Flying an aircraft and teaching Geography free are both hard. Only one of them is paid, and that is what puts them in different groups.

People in both groups — Weekdays paid, weekends given — Rohan writes software for a company from Monday and teaches computer skills for nothing on Saturday.

The first definition

An economic activity turns on money, or on something carrying money's worth. Read the next part carefully. Whatever is paid has to pass between both parties, which means both sides of the exchange and not only the person doing the work.

Why money's worth is in the definition

Because payment is not always in cash. If somebody is handed goods instead of notes, the activity is still economic, so long as what they receive carries a value they would otherwise have paid for. The definition is written wide on purpose, and the next topic gives a worker who is paid partly in cash and partly in fruit.

The chapter's five examples

Someone selling school bags at a market stall. A farmer bringing produce to that same market. A lawyer who argues a case and charges for it. A driver hauling goods from one place to the next. And the whole workforce of a factory that builds cars.

What that list is chosen to show

Look at how different the five are. Two are selling, one is arguing in court, one is driving and the last is a group of employees. Nothing about the work itself unites them. Only the payment does.

Market

A market is somewhere goods and services change hands. One good or service may simply be swapped for another, though in most markets the swap is made for money. Two of the five examples above happen in one: the school bags, and the farmer's produce.

Fee

A fee is what a person or an organisation charges for professional advice or a service. Note that an organisation can charge one, not only a person. The chapter's own examples are the payment made to a doctor and the payment made to a lawyer. That is why the lawyer in the list above earns a fee and not a salary.

Money's worth

Money's worth is what a person reckons an object is worth in money, going by how much good it does them. It explains why a thing handed over instead of cash can still settle a debt.

Salary

A salary is a set amount reaching an employee from an employer at the same point each month. Two things about it matter. The amount is settled in advance, and it comes round on a fixed day. A fee changes with the job it is charged for. A salary arrives on time whatever the month happened to contain.

The second definition

A non-economic activity brings in neither income nor wealth, and springs instead from gratitude, love, care or respect. The reason given is a feeling rather than a payment, which is exactly the contrast the chapter wants.

Its examples

Parents cooking food for the family. Parents helping their children with schoolwork. Young people taking care of their grandparents. Family members helping with the renovation of the house.

What those four have in common

Every one of them takes real time and effort. Every one of them would cost money if a stranger were hired to do it instead. And every one of them is done inside a family. None of them generates income or wealth, and that is the only reason they fall in the second group.

Geeta Aunty, classified

She receives a salary. The chapter puts it neatly. She serves her country, and she is carrying on an economic activity while she does it. The two statements sit side by side without contradicting each other.

Rohan, classified twice

He draws a salary from a software company, so that is economic. At the weekend he volunteers at a college youth development programme, teaching computer skills to young adults, and that is non-economic.

The question the chapter asks you

When Kabir's grandfather teaches the neighbourhood children free, is that economic or not, and how does it differ from your own teacher teaching you at school?

The answer, and why it is the sharpest test

The two acts are the same act. Somebody stands in front of children and teaches them. One is paid by a school and the other is not, and that single difference puts them in different groups. Nothing else about them differs at all.

Scenario:

A class sorts jobs into economic and non-economic. A farmer at market, a lawyer and a truck driver go in the first group. Then a child says her mother cooks for the family and also cooks for a neighbour who pays her. The class finds the same action falling on both sides. Their teacher asks what the test actually is. It is whether money, or something carrying money's worth, passes between the two sides. The class rewrites its rule. The sorting is not about the kind of work or how hard it is, but about whether a payment passes, which is why one action can be both.

Analysis:

The same cooking lands in both groups, which shows the test is not about the task. What decides it is whether a payment passes between the parties.

Activity:

List six jobs done around you. Mark each economic or not, and name one that could be either.

Title:

Two columns and one hard row

What You Notice:

Almost every activity has a paid twin somewhere. Cooking, driving, teaching and cleaning are all done both ways, and only the payment tells them apart.

Safety:

None needed.

The definition says money or money's worth, so being paid in goods still makes an activity economic.

The chapter says Geeta Aunty serves the country while also carrying on an economic activity. It does not treat those as rivals.

Every non-economic example given would cost money if a stranger were hired to do it instead.

The two definitions — Paid for it, or moved to do it — One group is defined by an exchange, the other by a feeling: gratitude, love, care or respect.

The four money words — Market, fee, worth, salary — Where the exchange happens, what a professional charges, what goods are valued at, and what an employee draws each month.

A journey, and a road being built

Kavya sets out for the village of Kamlapur, where her aunt lives. On the way she passes a highway under construction, and the site is busy. Large machines, excavators and bulldozers among them, are being worked by trained technicians.

What the road will change

Once it is finished, the journey to the nearest town will drop from five hours to two. Kavya works out at once what that means for her. She will be able to visit her aunt far more often than she does now, because the trip will take less time. She arrives happy with the thought.

The uncle

He comes home from work while she is there. He is a technician with a construction company and operates a bulldozer, which is the kind of machine she has just been watching. He is paid a monthly salary for his services.

The aunt, before she leaves

The next day the aunt is up early to get her part of the housework done, and only then does she leave for work. Those chores are unpaid, so they belong in the other group entirely.

The aunt, at work

She is on the staff of the village post office, drawing a salary each month, just as her husband is. So far this one household holds two salaries and one set of unpaid chores. Both salaries are economic activity. The chores are not, and nothing about how tiring they are changes that.

The aunt, in the evening

Once the office day is over she runs online classes, helping students prepare for their school examinations. For these she charges a weekly fee. That is a third kind of payment, in the same household, from the same person.

Sahil, at the orchard

At the weekend Kavya visits a local mango orchard. There she sees Sahil, a farm labourer, driving a tractor over a farmer's field nearby. His pay is reckoned by the day.

And how Sahil is actually paid

Partly in cash, and the rest in mangoes of equal value. The chapter gives that remainder a name of its own: payment in kind. It is a non-cash payment received for work that has been performed. Notice the words of equal value. The fruit is not a kindness added on top; it stands in for money he would otherwise have been handed.

Wage

A wage is what an employer pays a worker to cover a stated stretch of time. Sahil's is a daily one. The period is what separates a wage from a salary, which is fixed and monthly.

The four ways, side by side

The uncle draws a monthly salary. The aunt draws one too, and charges a weekly fee on top. Sahil earns a daily wage, part of it settled in kind. Four arrangements, all of them economic.

Value addition

The chapter now makes a second point. Economic activities put extra worth in at every step as one thing is worked into another. That is called value addition, and Kavya's father supplies the example.

Rajesh and his wood

Rajesh is a carpenter. He buys wood from a nearby market for six hundred rupees. He uses special tools and other materials to build furniture from it.

What the chair sells for

He sells a chair in the market for a thousand rupees. The wood in it cost six hundred, so four hundred rupees of the price is not the wood at all. The chapter asks the question directly, and it is worth pausing on before reading the answer. What is that four hundred rupees for?

The answer

It is what Rajesh's skill, his hours and his effort are worth in money, all of which went into making that chair. He has lifted the wood's worth by making furniture out of it.

Why the whole sequence is economic

Between the timber purchase and the sale of the chair, every step involves payment. Each one is therefore part of economic activity, and value has been added along the way rather than only at the end.

Scenario:

Meera keeps a small dairy in a village two hours from the nearest town. She buys fodder for her four buffaloes at ₹900 a week and sells the milk for ₹2,400 a week in the town market. Her son helps her load the cans before school and takes nothing for it. A neighbour, Farid, milks the buffaloes each morning. He is paid ₹200 for every morning he works. On Sundays he takes two litres of milk in place of ₹90 of that. Meera also teaches two girls from the next street to make paneer. She charges nothing, because their mother once nursed her through a fever. A new road is being built that will cut her journey to the market to forty minutes.

Analysis:

Every arrangement in this village has already appeared in the chapter. Farid is paid to cover one morning at a time. What he receives is a wage and not a salary. The two litres of milk he takes on Sundays are pay handed over as goods, which is payment in kind. It stands in for exactly ₹90, so it has plainly been valued in money. The son's loading and Meera's paneer lessons bring in no income. The reason given for the lessons is gratitude, one of the four feelings the chapter names. The milk is a case of value addition. Fodder worth ₹900 becomes milk worth ₹2,400, and the ₹1,500 between them is what Meera's work and her animals added.

Activity:

Pick one thing your household buys as a raw material and one thing it makes from that material. Find out what the raw material cost, estimate what the finished thing would sell for, and write down the difference. In one sentence, say whose skill and time that difference pays for.

The aunt is paid three different ways in one day if you count her unpaid chores, her salary and her weekly fee.

Sahil's mangoes are worth exactly as much as the cash he would otherwise have been given for that part of his work.

The highway will cut a five-hour journey to two, which is why Kavya expects to see her aunt more often.

The four payments — Month, week, day, and mangoes — A salary by the month, a fee by the week, a wage by the day, and the remainder settled in fruit.

Value addition — Six hundred in, a thousand out — The wood cost six hundred and the chair sold for a thousand. The gap is what the carpenter added.

The claim this part makes

Non-economic activities may not involve money, but the value they generate matters in our lives. That sentence is the hinge of the chapter. Everything before it sorted activities; this part argues that the unpaid half is worth something all the same.

Sevā

The word means selfless service. It is the first of the three things this part looks at, and the chapter treats it as something practised rather than merely admired. Everything that follows is an example of people doing it, not of people recommending it.

Where sevā is found

In many places, and the chapter names four of them: temples, gurudwaras, mosques and churches. It is not the property of any one community, and the list is written to make that plain.

The langar

The chapter's chosen example is the langar, or community kitchen, at a gurudwara. Food is served there to every visitor, free of charge. Nobody is asked who they are, where they come from, or what they might be able to pay. The meal is the same for whoever sits down.

What such practices do

Two things, according to the chapter. They build up contentment, and thankfulness for what we already have. And they are a way of giving to society with no return looked for.

That second half is the important one

With no return looked for. That is exactly what separates this from an economic activity. An exchange expects something back by definition, and the definition says so for both parties.

Prasād

The chapter also pictures a temple distributing prasād to devotees. Like the langar, it is food given rather than sold, and it costs the giver something without earning anything back.

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

The second thing this part looks at. It rests on every Indian citizen pitching in to keep their own surroundings clean. The words every citizen are doing real work in that sentence.

What individuals do, and what groups do

Individually, people keep their homes and their own surroundings clean, which is work anybody can do alone. Beyond that, people have joined forces to clear streets, roads, parks and other shared or community ground. That second kind is work no single household could finish by itself.

Why the chapter puts it that way

Because of what it says next. Together they build a clean home, and from that a clean neighbourhood, a clean society, and at last a clean nation. Each level is built from the one below.

Van Mahotsav

The third example, and its name means the festival of forests. It is celebrated in India to promote awareness of two related things: what trees are worth, and the keeping of forests. Awareness is an odd thing to produce, and it cannot be bought.

What actually happens at it

The initiative brings members of a community together for tree plantation drives. Like the langar and like a street clean-up, it is unpaid work that needs a number of people to be worth doing at all.

What the three have in common

None of them generates income. All of them need more than one person to be worth doing at all. And each one produces something a single household could never produce by itself: a fed stranger, a clean street, a planted stretch of ground. That is the argument this part of the chapter is making, and it makes it three times over rather than once.

The chapter's own summary

The chapter closes with three points, and they are worth learning as a set. It taught the difference between economic and non-economic activities. It taught the value addition that economic activities create, which can be measured, as four hundred rupees in a chair was measured. And it showed how non-economic activities work.

How they work, in the chapter's words

They contribute to social welfare. They contribute to personal wellbeing. And they enhance the overall quality of life. None of those three is measured in rupees, which is the whole reason the chapter had to say them out loud.

Scenario:

A class is asked what the unpaid work around them produces. The first answers are vague. Their teacher asks the children to imagine one week without it. No cooking at home, nobody caring for a small child or an elderly relative, no sevā at the temple or gurudwara. The list of consequences fills the board. The class works out that the output is real even though no payment marks it. Nita puts it carefully. Non-economic does not mean valueless; it means the value is not counted in money, and that is a fact about the counting rather than about the work.

Analysis:

Imagining the week without it is what makes unpaid output visible. The label describes what money records, not what the work is worth.

Activity:

List the unpaid work done in your home in a day. Write what one week without it would change.

Title:

Find the collective work near you

What You Notice:

Shared spaces usually depend on a mixture of paid workers and unpaid neighbours, and the unpaid part is the part nobody can be made to do.

Safety:

Observe from a safe place; do not enter construction or waste sites.

The chapter names four kinds of place where sevā is seen, so that no single community can claim the practice.

Van Mahotsav translates as the festival of forests, and its main activity is planting trees together.

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is described as leading from a clean home up to a clean nation, one level at a time.

The three examples — Feed, clean, plant — The langar feeds whoever comes, Swachh Bharat cleans shared spaces, and Van Mahotsav plants trees.

What they generate — Welfare, wellbeing, quality — Social welfare, personal wellbeing, and an overall quality of life. None of the three is measured in rupees.