Definition of Economic Activity

1. Act of purchase and sale of goods or services that implies the input of resources, production (labor), distribution and consumption of a product. Each economic sector receives a classification that identifies similar activities even if the final product offered is different (industry, commerce, construction, agriculture, etc.).

Etymology: Activity, by Latin modes you activate, activĭtātisbased on actuswhich refers precisely to ‘act’, and the suffix -dad, on the forms -tas, -ātisin attribution of quality. + Economic, from Latin oeconomicsfeminine of oeconomĭcuswith respect to the Greek οἰκονομικά (oikonomiκά), feminine of οἰκονομικός (oikonomikos), formed by οἰκος (oikos), referring to ‘home’, νόμος (nomes), as ‘rule’, and the suffix -ικός (-ikos), as an associative property.

Grammatical category: noun fem.
in syllables: ac-ti-vi-da-d + e-co-nó-mi-ca.

Economic activity

In general, human economic activity is understood as the exercise capable of providing man with the means to guarantee his livelihood and satisfy his material needs, through exchange with the social and natural environment. The rules that govern the choice of such means are variable, this means that there are various options for the use of resources that are considered scarce. In this sense, although the human being always requires an economy to survive, the type of economy and the economic activities involved in it are not necessarily determined.

Economic activity in a loose sense

In broad terms, when we talk about economic activities, we refer to the activities that result from the administration of the means to satisfy the needs of individuals within a social group —whether material, such as food or health. ; or non-material, such as education or leisure—that is, to the activities that make up the economy of that society. Economic activities are those through which the goods and services that are considered necessary are obtained, understanding good as any means to satisfy a need. Among the main economic activities we can mention, for example, agriculture, livestock, industry, which make up the productive base of the different countries.

The object of the economy is, then, to manage the resources for the production and distribution of goods, to be consumed or used by the members of society. The elections by virtue of which said administration is ordered, however, are not always associated with the scarcity of the resources that must be administered, but rather, in many cases, said elections respond to other criteria, for example, of a moral nature. , when what determines the choice is associated with the preference of what is considered “good” over what is considered “bad”.

Scarcity, for its part, is a relative concept, since it depends, at the same time, on the idea of ​​necessity, which is also variable. Thus, throughout history, the needs that are understood as basic have been transformed (such is the case, for example, of access to digital information, which in recent decades has come to be considered a need, correlatively to the development of new information technologies, while, prior to the expansion of digital communication media, logically, it was not seen as a human need).

Consequently, the relationship between the economy, in a necessary sense, and human economic activities, within the framework of an institutionalized economy, is contingent and conditioned by historical circumstances.

Types of economic activity

When referring to the notion of economic activity, the idea of ​​an action that modifies the environment is put into play, either through the transformation of matter or its displacement. Then, economic activities can be productive or distributive. In turn, the notion of activity refers broadly to human action, in such a way that work and employment can be specifically distinguished within economic activity. Work is understood as the economic activity carried out by people based on the production of a good or the provision of a service, which is important for the social group. Now, to the extent that work, understood in this way, is carried out in exchange for obtaining an income (whether as a salaried worker, employer, or self-employed), we call this type of activity employment. economic.

On the other hand, following the International Labor Organization (ILO), sectors of the population that are not economically active are considered to be those who are unemployed (that is, without a registered or unregistered job), or children , young people and people who receive transfers (retirees, pensioners, rentiers, among others).

Following