India's women and the workforce

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India's women and the workforce

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• Dropping women employment: The sharp drop in women's employment in India is explained away by three usual reasons. First, that women fear sexual violence outside their homes. Second, that it casts a bad light on her husband's earning ability. And third, that conservative attitude put women inside their homes and kitchens, and not outside. 
• What's the real reason: All three above sound logical, but facts tell another story. India never had a large LFPR (labour force participation rate) for its women.

1. The LFPR fell sharply from 2004-05 to 2011-12, and has dropped consistently post-that too. 
2. Most of this decline is in LFPR of rural women, and highest for the ST (Adivasi) women.
3. Urban female LFPR were always lower than rural, and hasn't declined that sharply. 
4. Research doesn't find any link between crimes and female LFPR. (nowhere in the world)
5. This doesn't mean that women are safe everywhere. While fear of crime hasn't deterred them from seeking work, while at work, sexual harassment is not uncommon.

• Domestic violence: So, in fact, the logic of public sphere violence against women becomes an excuse to hold them back home, where they may be subjected to domestic violence. And that's from those known to women - their own menfolk. So protecting women by locking them indoors is the perfectly wrong policy!
• A shift: A key trend is that women have moved from paid to unpaid work, and are simply not counted as workers. They contribute for free in family enterprise (farming, animal rearing, kiran, handmade products) and men are counted but women are not. Women's work is simply not counted, but without their work, these activities would die. 
• The real issue: The demand for labour in sectors where women are concentrated has dropped sharply. That is wrongly compared with withdrawal of women due to above-mentioned reasons. Actually, nature of work available has changed, especially for rural and less educated women. So "dropping out" isn't the case entirely.
• No. of days: The proportion of women who are economically active has not declined, but their no. of days worked has come down (that shows as a lower LFPR now). Past 30 years saw a huge decline in no. of agricultural jobs, and the parallel rise in non-farm jobs was missing. Mechanisation hit women directly.
• Moving out: So a movement out of agri jobs and into informal and casual jobs has happened. Work is irregular. As for the new modern-sectors which are in services, mostly only men get work there. And women who do manage it (highly educated ones) battle the issues of childcare and transportation. Many drop out.
• Strange in India: Over the past 20 years, worldwide (and in India), fertility rates have dropped and women's education has improved. That has meant more paid work for women everywhere, but not in India. And the pandemic has seriously reversed whatever existed, putting newer domestic workload in addition.
• Summary: Indian women are hungry for more paid work, which is simply not being generated. Lack of demand for their labour is holding them back

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