New Delhi: The Sikh community has the lowest sex ratio of 893 females per 1000 males well below the national average of 933.

This is revealed in the census figures of 2001 based on religion released recently.

As regards the disparity of the absolute and relative number of males and female population in the society, expressed in terms of sex ratio or number of females per thousand males, the Hindus recorded 931 and were slightly below the national average whereas sex ratio among Muslim was 936.

The sex ratio among the Christian population grew handsomely from 994 in 1991 to 1009 in 2001, it said adding, for the Buddhist and the Jains, the sex ratio remained almost the same as 953 and 950 respectively.

The 2001 Census also contained data on economic activity for different religious groups.

The proportion of workers to total population (work participation rate) varied from 48.4 per cent among those following other religion and persuasions to a very low of 31.3 per cent among Muslims.

In terms of type of economic activity, 33.1 per cent of the workers among Hindus returned themselves as cultivators and among Muslims they were only 20.7 per cent, the Census 2001 said.

Of Buddhist workers, 37.6 per cent were recorded as agricultural labourers, not owning land. Among Hindus, the percentage of agricultural labourers was 27.6 per cent and among Muslims it was 22 per cent.

Importantly, the percentage of workers in household industries among the Muslims was highest at 8.1 per cent; much above the national average of 4.2 per cent for all communities and percentage of female workers in the segment was also quite high among the community at 19.3 per cent, reflecting their traditional association with arts and crafts and such household industries.

Among the Jains, with the highest literacy rate among the six religious groups, the workers were mainly returned as 'Other' worker at 81.7 per cent, that is they are employed mainly in non-agricultural sector.

"The new data set on literacy, and work status by religion, will surely help in evaluating the condition of life and also help in evolving more realistic plans for development to remove disparity," the Commission said.