It is projected that the proportion of India's rural population in the working age group of 15-64 years would increase from 62.9 per cent in 2006 to 68.4 percent by 2026 (Economic Survey 2006-2007 p. 215). A diversification of employment opportunities in rural India in conjunction with a larger working age population could offer India the opportunity to benefit from the demographic dividend. However, the employment numbers do not suggest that India might not be on course to reap the demographic dividend. The inability of agricultural sector to absorb workforce is reflected in the elasticity of employment. The elasticity of employment was estimated at 0.00 for the period 1993-94 to 1999-00 (Planning Commission 2001). We seek to understand whether there is diversification of employment in rural India. The specific questions addressed are the following. What are the trends in workforce participation rates and unemployment rates? Are there gender specific differences? Are people moving out of agriculture? Is there employment diversification? Are there differences across very high, high, medium and low poverty regions? Over the years there has been no change in the overall workforce participation rates across all the poverty regions. But the workforce participation rate of male declined and that of female increased over the years across all the poverty regions. The workforce participation rate for females doubled in 2004-05 compared to 1993-94 in the very high poverty region. The unemployment rate increased over the years across all the poverty regions. The unemployment rates almost doubled for male and female in the low poverty region in 2004-05 compared to 1993-94. The increase in the unemployment rate has been the least in the very high poverty region. Based on three recent rounds of NSSO data on employment and unemployment, our findings infer that over the years there has been a tendency of decline in the share of agricultural sector and increase in the share of non-agricultural sector in total rural workforce. This pattern of diversification is evident across all the age cohorts. Over the years there has been a decline in the share of agriculture in the total rural female workforce across all the poverty regions. The share of agriculture in male workforce declined in the very high poverty region but in other poverty regions the share of agriculture in total rural male workforce almost remained unchanged over the years. Our findings show that over the years the share of tertiary sector employment in the female workforce particularly employment in the construction sector has increased across all the poverty regions. Among the manufacturing sector the share of employment in the wearing apparel industry increased over time for both male and female.