Quaternary and Quinary Activities

Quaternary Activities:

Quaternary activities in the ‘Knowledge Sector’ are specialised tertiary activities that require their own categorization. From mutual fund managers to tax advisors, software engineers, and statisticians, need for and consumption of information-based services has increased dramatically. This group includes employees who work in offices, elementary schools, and college classrooms, hospitals and physicians’ offices, theatres, accountancy, and brokerage businesses. Quaternary tasks, like some tertiary services, can be outsourced. They aren’t reliant on resources, aren’t influenced by the environment, and aren’t always market-driven.

• It focuses on research and development and may be thought of as a more advanced service requiring specialised knowledge and technical abilities
• The quaternary activities and tertiary sectors have replaced most primary and secondary employment as the basis for economic growth. The ‘Knowledge Sector’ employs over half of all the employees in industrialised nations. Demand for and utilisation of information-based operations has increased dramatically, ranging from mutual fund managers to tax advisors, software engineers, and statisticians
• This group includes employees working in commercial properties, primary schools, institutional courses, clinics, physicians’ offices, theatres, accountancy, and trading businesses.

Quinary Activities:

Quinary activities focus on the creation, reorganisation, and evaluation of fresh and innovative ideas, and also interpretation of data and new technology usage and assessment. ‘Gold collar’ professions are a subset of the tertiary sector that reflect the particular and highly compensated abilities of top business executives, government officials, scientific researchers, legal and financial advisors, and others. Their significance in the structure of modern economies transcends their numbers by a large margin. Quinary actions are carried out by the highest level of decision-makers or policymakers.

• One of the biggest and basic differences between Quaternary and Quinary activities is that Quinary activities subtly differ from knowledge-based sectors
• These activities concentrate on the development, reorganisation, analysis of fresh and innovative ideas, interpretation of data, and the use and assessment of new technology
• It’s commonly referred to as a ‘gold collar’ job. They are a subset of the tertiary sector that includes top company executives, public officials, engineers, scientists, legal & financial advisors, and other professionals with specialised and well-paid talents
• The significance of Quinary activities in the formation of modern economies transcends their number by a large margin

Digital Divide:

• Globally, the benefits of information and communication technology-based growth are unevenly dispersed. Countries have a wide range of financial, geopolitical, and socioeconomic disparities
• The speed with which countries can give ICT access and advantages to their population is the decisive factor
• The digital divide exists because, although rich nations have developed, poorer countries are still developing. For example, in a vast nation like India or Russia, certain locations, such as urban areas, would invariably have better connection and accessibility to the online realm than rural ones

Outsourcing

• Giving work to an outside firm, often known as outsourcing or contracting out, is a way to increase efficiency and cut expenses
• Offshoring is a phrase used to describe outsourcing that entails relocating work to areas outside the United States. However, both terms are used interchangeably. Information technology (IT), human resource management, customer service, and, on occasion, manufacturing as well as engineering are among the business functions that are outsourced
• Processing of data is an IT-related operation that Asian African countries and Eastern European countries may readily do. IT-skilled personnel with high English language abilities are accessible in these nations at cheaper pay than in industrialised countries
• Overhead expenses are also substantially cheaper, making it advantageous to have work done from another country
• Job Creation: Outsourcing means moving to places where low-cost, skilled labour is available. These are also nations where people are leaving
• Knowledge processing outsourcing (KPO) as well as ‘home shoring’ are two new trends in quinary services
• Since it employs highly qualified individuals, the KPO business differs from Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). It’s knowledge outsourcing based on data. Companies may use KPO to expand their business options. Research and development (R&D) activities, e-learning, corporate analysis, copyright law (IP) research, judicial process, and the banking industry are all examples of KPOs

Conclusion

Quinary economic activities are sometimes regarded as a subset of quaternary economic activities, and sometimes as a different category, depending on whose economist or geographer you consult. The primary difference between quinary and quaternary is that quinary requires high-level thinking and decisions based on extensive research and data, whereas quaternary does not. A quinary economic activity is something like ecotourism, which mixes environmental conservatism with the tourism sector.