HOW CAN INDIA DEVELOP WITHOUT WOMEN IN WORKFORCE

 

As the President of G 20, one of the most remarkable commitments India made was to promote women led development. This, in the entire developing world, will ensure women empowerment. As countries that have embraced gender diversity in decision making have witnessed better economic and financial performance, this is vital for India if we aim to become a developed country by the year 2047. Though we knew it all along IMF's Geeta Gopinath emphasized it once again that India's economic aspirations can't be met without healthier women labour force participation. According to a research conducted by Azim Premji University in 2023 only 17% of urban women are in paid workforce and the situation in the rural hinterland is far worse.

 

Why are women important at workplace?

When a group of researchers Ratna Sahai, Benedict Clements and Huy Nguyen sampled the number of women in parliament of120 countries they witnessed that their higher share and senior positions ensured higher spending on health and education. Social outcomes like Infant Mortality Rate and Maternal Mortality Rate came down. Nobel laureate Esther Doflo, working in Indian villages found that female leadership in villages positively influenced the aspirations of impressionable adolescent girls and broke gender stereotypes.

 

Banks in India have witnessed that higher number of women in managerial positions resulted in lower Non Productive Assets, (NPAs), loan default and improved their financial stability. Researchers have found that having even a single woman in the board of a NSE listed company resulted in lower debt equity ratio and higher profitability. 

 

Despite these overwhelming evidences of the benefits of including women in the work force, only a dismal number of them are included. Our government keeps on reminding us that we are the fifth largest economy but what it does not say is we are there despite a only 18% contribution from our female work force. Can you imagine where we would have been had we not languished at 129th position in the gender gap ladder which has only 146 countries? Women employment and economic prosperity of a nation are closely related. If half the population is dismally represented in the workforce of a nation then it has no hope to thrive and prosper.

 

What are they doing with their education?

Right from school leaving exams we see the girls performing better than the boys at every step - higher pass percentage, higher marks, and in more numbers among the toppers. Then why is this educational superiority not being represented in the workforce? Why their labour force participation is is only 32.7% (25.6 crores or 256 million)! What are they doing with their education? The conservatives would say that they are building the future India in their homes, but that is being done even by working mothers! So, the obvious answer is that they are not getting their due share of opportunities. They cannot keep on doing unpaid and unsung jobs in homes and fields and waste their talents and skills (see the India Today pie chart).

 

Even after 77 years of Independence they comprise only 14% of Lok Sabha, 15.2% of Rajya Sabha, 8% of Union ministers, 14% of sitting High Court judges and 4% of Supreme Court judges. Only around 11% of IAS officers are women. So if this is their representation in the decision making stratosphere is it at all surprising that only 5-8% of central government jobs and 25-30% of state governments jobs are with women? If they are smart enough to treat the diseased and the infirm, if they are intelligent enough to send satellites to the space and beyond, if they are creative enough to produce award winning films and literature surely they must be good enough for a larger share of government jobs!

 

If the society could not address this gender discrimination in 77 years it is time to do so by legislative means. Reserving 30% of parliamentary seats are not enough, this should extend to government jobs and it should be nothing less than 50%. The private sector, the administration and the judiciary too should be encouraged to do the same. More women in the system will make it safer for women. When they start contributing to their fullest ability, our success in nation building as well as economy is assured.

Two Road-bumps

It turns out that women in our country encounter two road-bumps in their path to employment success - marriage and childbirth. So, are women in developed countries and even in the developing Asian Tiger nations not getting married or having children? How come they can cope with it and our ladies can't? The problem lies in our mindset and in our societal structure.

 

We were hoping that education would empower women to ride smoothly over the marriage road-bump with greater household bargaining power. We were also expecting that more educated husbands would be less conservative in social attitude and be a more active parent and homemaker. But except in a very small section, mostly professionals, this has not happened. Parents are still bringing up their sons and daughters differently and that is giving them a wrong start.

Sadly India has not seen women in workforce rise at anywhere near the pace of their rise in education. Their window of employment opportunity and economic freedom is fleetingly small - from ending education to getting married and then their talent and education is never being used for nation building. For far too long the society has indoctrinated them with the notion that their family is the brick by which this nation will be built and their job is to take good care of the family, the vital unit of the nation. This cannot be their sole responsibility and a much active role in nation building awaits them.

 

Why are women not in workforce in India?

Higher levels if harassment, threats, violence, patriarchal norms and societal stereotypes keep women out of workforce. Even in village panchayats which have women heads, the decisions are often taken by male family members. Only 42% of women in the latest PLFS survey work as against 79% of men. Unpaid household duties consume most of their time. After marriage and particularly after childbirth, their numbers reduce drastically in workforces and only a few end up reaching senior positions. If the mother-in-law is a working lady then the daughter-in-law faces less resistance at home to work.

 

But the disproportionate burden of work they carry at home prevent them from taking up regular jobs for which they are no less qualified. If a large proportion of their time is spent on tending for the family, making endless cups of tea, cooking hot snacks and real mega meals comprising of two sabjis, fish, egg or chicken, daal, raita, pickle, chutney, papadams, chaas, ghee jaggery, rice and hot phulkas served straight from oven to the plate, then where is the time left for a proper and productive job? How can she make her contribution to nation building? As if that was not enough, the son's homework, the daughter's dance classes, and overlooking the work of the gardener, the household bai, the safai karmchari, the washerwomen, the driver are all her duties. It seems the system is so designed in order to keep her entangled in non productive work 24x7 and idolize her homemaker status in the most futile way.

 

Unsafe work environment also keep women away from work. Unfavourable working hours, improper lighting, unsafe resting space, and unkind and irresponsible colleagues make them subjects of workplace harassment. Her social status is not a security as was witnessed in the rape and murder of the female doctor in Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Medical College recently. Considering the rape of a trainee doctor in a renowned medical institution of one of the busiest metropolitan city of our country, is it difficult to understand why so few women venture out to work? Can you imagine how many chains and hurdles the poor doctor had to break through to be on night duty? As if her assault and murder was not enough the patriarchy spoke through the Principal of the institution when he said the victim was irresponsible! Rape is the most heinous crime and are the worst fault lines in our civilization and if it goes unpunished how many girls will dare to come out and work?

 

Economists are stumped

Over nearly two decades, India's female labor participation rate looks like a steady downward curve, from 32% in 2005, to 19% in 2021 – the most recent year for which statistics are available. As India develops, women are dropping out of its workforce – in record numbers. This is happening among rich and poor women, in urban and rural areas – across social class, religion and age groups. In fact, it's happening even among poor rural women – who might need a paycheck the most. Economists cite six factors that may help explain this economic mystery: prosperity, education, social norms, safety concerns, problems with statistical measurement and a lack of decent and productive employment.

1.      Prosperity: As household incomes rise, women are dropping out of India's workforce simply because they can afford to. Many no longer have to do back-breaking tasks in agriculture or other manual labor. Women move in and out of employment, depending on their family's needs, working only when it becomes difficult to survive on single income of the husband alone.

2.      Education: They are staying longer in schools and colleges and so are counted out of work for that period of time, when compared to the previous generation. This skews the work force data mostly just for women in their teens and early twenties but doesn't explain what's happening across all age groups

3.      Social Norms: Indians still have conservative ideas about a woman's role in the family. We have discussed this extensively, how they are prioritizing unpaid household labor over profession.

4.     Safety concerns: A massive wave of migration out of India's countryside has unintended consequences for women. Often it's a solo male worker who migrates first, leaving women and children in their ancestral village – where the wife effectively becomes a single parent. She has less flexibility to seek paid work outside the home. When women do migrate to urban areas, they often have safety concerns. They may not know their neighbors as well as they did in their ancestral villages. And if they get jobs, they may have to commute long distances, or at night – on public transit that's often unreliable and unsafe. Violence against women is exacerbated by privatization. Take Uber, for example! It's not an affordable option for a majority of workers, but is it safe every time?

5.      Statistics may not tell the truth: Women not working dose not always mean that women are not earning. They are often replacing the lack of income with economic activities,  which are generally not counted as work – like collecting firewood, working in the agricultural sector, taking care of cattle, making milk products, pickle and papadam.

6.     Lack of decent employment: This is an issue about the ability, or lack thereof , of an economy to create decent, productive employment that's appropriate and accessible for women. She has to take care of her family and then find time for work. So, her choice of suitable work gets limited. Weak labor laws don't help. India has no national minimum wage or law governing overtime and so they easily get exploited and leave the workforce.

So this may be one of India's biggest challenges, as its population grows. Not only to create jobs for all of its workers, but to create the conditions that'll allow its female workers to take them. They constitute 49% of our population. You cannot ignore them and progress.