Women's gradual exit from workforce

During the pandemic, while women endured the “problematic combination of informal work, poverty and gender bias”, the UN Women’s latest report revealed a decline in the number of employed women by 54 million in 2020 and altogether an exit of 45 million from the labour market.

In India, the crisis widened the gender gap, as about 26.6% of women have been forced out from the workforce, as against 13.4% of men (March-April 2020). The gap shrunk a little by the end of last year, but continued to be 14% lower than December 2019, as against just 1% lower for men. In 2020, globally, less than half (46.9%) of all women remained in the labour force, as against nearly three in four (74.0%) men.

As per International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates, there was a loss of 140 million full-time jobs due to Covid-19 in 2020, and women’s employment was 19% more at risk than men. In India, when male employment recovered steadily as the economy unlocked from April to August 2020, women’s chances of being employed was 9% points lower than that of men as compared to April 2019 situation. While they faced a high rate of unemployment (17%) compared to men (6%) women “found it much harder than men to find a job, which suggests a bias against employing women”, commented a report by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

No wonder that so far the Indian story remained all about women’s gradual retreat from gainful employment. Even if they are in the job market, it is mostly in sectors with “low wages, few social benefits and less secure jobs”. The female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) dropped to 17.5% in 2017-18, the lowest ever in Indian history. India has the lowest FLFPR in the world, with only parts of the Arab world being lesser, even though it grew at a high rate of 7% and above (World Bank).

Now, the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS, 2019-20) revealed an overall increase of 4.2 percentage points in FLFPR with a major push from the rural sector (an increase of 5 %) as against the urban (2.4%). Notwithstanding this, experts dubbed the marginal upward turn “nothing to be happy about, as it does not come from any good quality work but mostly from unpaid family work or from the informal sector, which, in no way, could promote gender empowerment”.

Not surprising that the PLFS 2019-20 data also laid bare a jump from 9.6% to 11.1% (urban) and from 37.9% to 42.3% (rural) in women’s share of work as unpaid household workers. The Time Use Survey, 2021 (Ministry of Statistics, Planning and Implementation) also disclosed that 92% of women (15-59 years) spend nine times more time on household duties, as compared to men. Globally, India has the most unequal gender division of household work.

Nevertheless, the increase in urban FLFPR is basically because of women’s increasing exposure to high-contact sectors like healthcare, hospitality, entertainment, retail et al (from 14% to 22%), which has made “their employment riskier and working conditions more precarious”. While a two-phased survey (April 20 and November 20) by the Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST) in Delhi among about 2,000 women informal workers in sectors like domestic work, street-vending, waste-picking, home-based and construction work observed that “pre-lockdown employment was the strongest predictor of post-lockdown employment, and its effect is different for men and women, and for 64% of the respondents, who lost the means to work, the fear of lost livelihoods far outweighs the fear of contracting the virus”.

In rural India, the rise in FLFPR to 76% in 2019-20 from 72% in 2018-19 is also “mostly in the sub-optimal category, and not in any productive employment, reflecting a deep distress in the rural economy”, experts commented. The agriculture sector grew by 3.4% and witnessed record food grain production even during the Covid crisis, “but this did not result in increased farm incomes, rather created disguised unemployment”, many experts opined. Indian agriculture underwent progressive “feminisation”, yet women’s status largely confined to being as farm labourers, owning just 12.8% of the country’s land. The census 2011 recognised 3.6 crores women as “cultivators” but did not identify them as “farmers”, which deprived them of institutional credits or subsidies, and thus greatly hindered women’s agricultural productivity, which researchers called the “feminisation of agrarian distress” (Oxfam India).

The parliamentary standing committee on labour this year suggested a gender-sensitive socio-economic recovery strategy comprising universal healthcare, enhanced budgetary allocation for the rural MGNREGA and the creation of a similar urban labour demand-driven programme. Moreover, both public and private enterprises must devise gender-based employment targets and incentive-based capacity-building initiatives, while rural India needs more gender-focused cash-based social protection schemes and opportunities for productive non-farm and farm works.

(The writer is former D-G, Doordarshan and AIR)