India’s economy is growing with increasing GDP and a potential workforce that might reach 800 million by 2050. But still, Indian women are struggling to make their equal mark in all employment sectors. On one hand, India is witnessing growth, but on the other hand, women being the half population of the country are still failing to be an equal part of the Indian labour force.
Trends:
According to a World Bank report, women aged 15 and above who participate in the labour force are only 19.9% of the total labour force of India. Even with the help of various government schemes and initiatives, the country has seen drastic changes in women’s employability rate. But that change has mainly been found in White Collar jobs. There is hardly any increase in the participation of women in the labour force or in other words blue-collar jobs. Instead, India is seeing a gradual decline in the women labour force. In 2005, the percentage of women in the total labour force was more than 25%, which has declined to less than 20%. In 2013, International Labour Organisation (IL0) ranked India at 121 out of 131 countries for its female labour force participation.
Reasons:
The reason behind low labour force participation is due to the conventional mindset of Indian families where women are bound to restrictions over the kind of work they can do. The notion also comes with a huge gender wage gap along with a lack of safety policies in the work environment. Discrimination and atrocities against women in the workplace are major factors. The infrastructure sometimes also becomes a reason that fails to involve female requirements. Factors like social background, the income of other households and place of residence are also additional reasons for the lack of women’s participation in the workforce. Women also suffer from demand-side constraints, where employers find reluctant to hire female staff. Time spent on unpaid care work or 24/7 domestic chores hinders women from going out to find work themselves.
Types of work women get involved:
Domestic work
Women invest most of their time in the domestic and care duties of their households, which remains unpaid and unrecognised. Though NSS survey has revealed that if domestic and unpaid work is counted then it clearly shows that many women work more than men in India. According to its 2011-12 report, the total work participation for women, including rural and urban areas, was as high as 56.7% compared to 79.8% for men. Unfortunately, these unpaid work doesn’t get counted under National Income due to their non-economic nature. But the argument is it is impossible to imagine a society if these activities are not performed. It will directly affect the economic state of the country.
Agriculture:
Women participate more than men in low-value work in agriculture, which tends to be tiring work with low or zero financial benefit. There is the highest wage gap. Women sometimes work on behalf of their male partners, for which they don’t even get paid.
Non-Agriculture:
It involves fields like education, health, manufacturing and other service sector jobs. In urban cities, there has been an increasing trend in high skill occupations like managerial and administration jobs. But this success has been confined to urban women who had better access to higher technical education.
But there are a large population of women who have also been involved in low pay jobs that demand high skill. For example, women as ASHA workers and ANMs in the public health sector get salaries even less than the minimum wage rate. Another example is teaching, women dominate this sector. But there is a high trend of contract teachers recruitment in schools, who are not regular employees with good pay and benefits.
Next comes the middle-skilled segment – manufacturing. Women are mostly found in textile, garments, shoe factories and food processing units. Gender segregation is clear in this sector. Because women’s presence is less likely seen in chemical, rubber, electrical and plastic production.
In less skilled or unskilled work, women in rural areas work in construction or mining-related occupations, mainly as head loaders. And in urban areas, most women get involved in sales, services, mining, construction and manufacturing. There has been a big increase in pink-collar jobs i.e care-related jobs, like in the beauty industry, personal care, restaurants services, housekeeping, cook etc.
The way forward to involve more women labour force :
India aims to be the superpower in the world but lacks in balancing gender equality in the field of employment. So to make the aim possible the country needs to take serious steps to increase the women labour force with better work conditions.
The infrastructure of the workspace needs to be created from the perspective of all genders. The necessity to make toilets, nursing homes, renting or hostel accommodations and creches in the workplace. The government gradually can make the compulsion for employers to take safety measures in the workplace to dissolve the taboos and insecurities associated with women working. There should be a gendered form of the budget instead of generalized employment generation budget schemes. Women workers, whether formal or informal, should get employee benefits. Private companies and manufacturing units should be encouraged through government incentives and benefits to involving more women in the workforce.
India could add $770 billion to its GDP by 2025 just by increasing 10% women participation in the total labour force.
An example: A positive initiative by DICV
Daimler India Commercial Vehicle (DICV), a commercial automobile manufacturing unit based in Tamil Nadu, announced an increase in the ratio of female employees to the workforce. It aims to increase female factory employees by 20% by 2022, to have a gender-balanced staff. Steps Taken: Providing an inclusive environment by providing services of creche, restroom and medical professionals. Ensuring a healthy and safe workplace by reinforcing policies like POSH, speedy redressal system for other issues and the initiative to give the training for gender sensitisation. To make the experience comfortable, it provides an onboarding process, training on communication, safety and hygiene. Amodel that can be replicated by many others.
ShramIN as a helping tool women workforce:
Knowing the busy schedule and restrictive environment, it is difficult for Indian women to go out and find a job for themselves. Many remain unemployed to avoid the time consuming and tiring process of finding a job. ShramIN brings a free, fast and easy platform for people to find jobs online through their mobile. No need to wander around to different employers. Now just download the ShramIN jobs App and find various jobs at your fingertips. It is an advantage especially for Indian women who don’t have spare time to find jobs offline. It can bring revolutionary change to women who are looking for blue-collar jobs. It is also a platform for employers who are searching for blue-collar workers/ factory and manufacturing workers/ ITI workers etc. So, ShramIN can be a kickstart for your female staff hiring. Download the ShramIN Recruit now or visit www.shramin.com