The recently released periodic labour force survey (PLFS) data published by the NSSO shows that India’s female Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR)—the share of working-age women who report either being employed, or being available for work—has fallen to a historic low of 23.3% in 2017-18, meaning that over three out of four women over the age of 15 in India are neither working nor seeking work.

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Highlights of the report:

• Just nine countries around the world, including Syria and Iraq, now have a fewer proportion of working women than India, new official data confirms.
• If Bihar were a country, it would have the lowest share of working women in the world. Bihar has by far the lowest rates of female workforce participation, while the southern and eastern states do better.
• Among urban women who do work, domestic cleaning work is the second most common profession after textile-related jobs.
• While the LFPR for women aged 15-29 fell by eight percentage points between 2011-12 and 2017-18 to 16.4%, the LFPR for women fell by at least seven percentage points for every age bracket between 30-50 as well.
• Among women in the prime working ages of 30-50, more than two in three women are not in the workforce, with the majority of them reporting that they are “attending to domestic duties only”
• Muslim women have the lowest LFPR while among Hindu women, forward caste women have the lowest LFPR, implying that social norms and religious conservatism might play a role in women being “allowed” to work.
• rural women work overwhelmingly in agriculture, which could offer a clue to understanding the falling rates of rural workforce participation. It is likely that non-farm jobs are rare, especially for women.
• 99% of (women workers described as directors and chief executives) were self-employed, of which around one-third worked as unpaid family workers

Factors responsible for such a fall in working rates of women:

• Maternity: Many women who join the workforce are unable to re-join after having a child.
• The landmark legislation Maternity Benefit Act, 2017, which entitles a woman to 26 weeks of paid maternity leave, is becoming a big hurdle as start-ups and SMEs have become reluctant to hire them.
• The increased cost for companies and this may discourage them from hiring women.
• The share of women workers in the agriculture sector dropped from 42% in 2004 -05 to 35.5% in 2011-12. This decrease in FLPR in agriculture can be attributed to increased adoption of technology in agriculture.
• The gender pay gap was 34 per cent in India, that is, women get 34 per cent less compared to men for performing the same job with same qualifications.
• In the organised sector, women professionals even in the highest ranks of labour (legislators, senior officials, and managers) are also paid less compared to their male counterparts. However, these women constitute only one per cent of the total female work force and the gap is lowest as they are aware of their rights.
• Concerns about safety and Harassment at work site, both explicit and implicit.
• According to NSSO, urban males accounted for 16% of India’s population, but held 77% of all jobs in computer-related activities in 2011-12. This shows how gender has become a discriminatory factor for certain white-collared jobs.
• Higher Education levels of women also allow them to pursue leisure and other non-work activities, all of which reduce female labour force participation.
• Insufficient availability of the type of jobs that women say they would like to do, such as regular part-time jobs that provide steady income and allow women to reconcile household duties with work.
• According to the reports, about 74 per cent in rural areas and about 70 per cent in urban areas preferred ‘part time’ work on a regular basis while 21 per cent in rural areas and 25 per cent in urban areas wanted regular ‘full-time’ work.
• Marriage is a career stopper for the majority of Indian women and this cultural abhorrence towards women working is a not-so-subtle way of ensuring that the escape routes out of a marriage are minimised, if not entirely closed
• Social norms about household work are against women’s mobility and participation in paid work. Childbirth and taking care of elderly parents or in-laws account for the subsequent points where women drop off the employment pipeline.
• The cultural baggage about women working outside the home is so strong that in most traditional Indian families, quitting work is a necessary precondition to the wedding itself.
• When increases in family incomes are there, due to the cultural factors, women leave the work to take care of the family and avoid the stigma of working outside.

Way forward:

• Non-farm job creation for women: there is a need to generate education-based jobs in rural areas in the industrial and services sectors
• The state governments should make policies for the participation of rural women in permanent salaried jobs.
• The governments should also generate awareness to espouse a positive attitude towards women among the public since it is one of the most important impediments in women’s participation in economic activities.
• Local bodies, with aid from state governments, should open more crèches in towns and cities so that women with children can step out and work. The crèches will open employment opportunities for women.
• Supply side reforms to improve infrastructure and address other constraints to job creation could enable more women to enter the labour force.
• Higher social spending, including in education, can lead to higher female labour force participation by boosting female stocks of human capital.
• Skilling the women:
  • Initiatives such as Skill India, Make in India, and new gender-based quotas from corporate boards to the police force can spur a positive change. But we need to invest in skill training and job support.
  • The private sector could also take active part in training women entrepreneurs. For example: Unilever’s Shakti program, which has trained more than 70,000 rural women in India as micro-entrepreneurs to sell personal-care products as a way of making its brands available in rural India
• Equal pay: The principle of equal remuneration for work of equal value that is protected by Indian law must be put to actual practice. Improved wage-transparency and gender neutral job evaluation is required to achieve this end.
• Assuring safe access to work: It is important to improve existing transport and communication networks and provide safe accommodation for women who travel to or has migrated for work.
• A useful and easily implementable idea would be to give income tax benefits to women. It would be a bold and effective step to increasing India’s female workforce participation.
• For political empowerment of women, their representation in Parliament and in decision making roles in public sphere is one of the key indicators of empowerment.
• Gig Economy provides women flexible work options to pursue their career while not missing important milestones in their family lives.
• Drawing more women into the labour force, supplemented by structural reforms that could help create more jobs would be a source of future growth for India. Only then would India be able to reap the benefits of “demographic dividend” from its large and youthful labour force.

Conclusion:

With more than 75% women not contributing to the economy, the nation is not only losing on the economic part but also the development of 50% of our population. The numeric consequences of reducing obstacles to women’s full economic participation far exceed the demographic advantages of having a larger pool of young workers. It is thus high time to talk of the gender dividend along with the demographic dividend.