Gujarat is an important partner in the economic and social development of India. It is the seventh largest state of India in terms of area and ninth largest in terms of population. With a population of about 5% of India’s total population, Gujarat contributes 8.3% to India’s GDP and 33% of India’s total merchandise exports. The present paper makes an analytical study of this important journey of structural change in the state of Gujarat during 1987-88 to 2021-22 and attempts to understand how the share of production of primary, secondary and tertiary sectors in the GDP and employment of the state has changed and based on the data of changes in these shares, two indices of structural change, Norm of Absolute Value Index and Modified Lilien Index, have been calculated to measure the structural change that has taken place in the state economy of Gujarat. The current study of structural changes in the economy of Gujarat in the present paper clearly shows that there is a decline of about 21% points in the share of primary sector in GSDP during the study period, while the contribution of secondary and tertiary sector represents an increase of 18% points and 3% points respectively in 1984-85 to 2021-22. On the basis of the above data, by computing the Norm of Absolute Value Index and Modified Lilien Index of structural change and performing a t-test on their 5-year moving average, both the indices prove the occurrence of structural change in the economy. Likewise the employment share of primary sector had decreased by 17.4 percentage points while that of secondary and tertiary sectors shares had increased by 8.7 and 8.6 percentage points respectively during 1987-88 to 2021-22. Similar results are shown by t test on the two structural change indices calculated for employment as well. Hence, it is concluded that significant structural changes have taken place in both output and employment in the economy of Gujarat during the above period.
