Post by account_disabled on Mar 5, 2024 22:37:08 GMT -5
India will soon end China's long streak as the world's most populous country. But according to some projections, its workforce will not surpass China's until mid-century, even though Indians are much younger. One reason is that very few women in India are in paid work.
The Economist comments that the International Labor Organization says only a fifth of adult women had a job or were looking for one in 2019, compared to three-fifths in China. The Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy, a local research firm, put the proportion of urban women who have or are looking for work at just 7% in November.
Loss of jobs and impacts
During the pandemic, women have typically been the first to lose their jobs and the last to regain them. School closures have forced some to stop working to care for children who would normally be in class.
Young women who have not been able to study, train or work during the pandemic are marrying accordingly. This is a worrying fact. While in other countries women tend to withdraw from the workforce when they have to bear a child, in India they do so when they have to bear a husband.
working women in india
Situation of working women in India
Some will say that Ecuador Mobile Number List nothing should or can be done about it. If Indian women decide not to work outside the home, that is their problem. Leaving working life is a status symbol for upwardly mobile households, demonstrating that they are able to get by on the husband's income alone.
But the shortage of working women in India is not simply a reflection of cultural preferences. Many women on the margins of the economy are not there by choice. They say they would like to work if they could.
If they all got their wish, more than 100 million women would be added to the workforce, according to one estimate. This is more than the total number of workers, men and women, in France, Germany and Italy combined.
Furthermore, Indians are not as hostile to working women as employment figures suggest. Their answers to questions like “Should men have more rights to a job than women?” They are more egalitarian than survey responses in Indonesia, where 53% of women work outside the home.
working women in india
Despite this, the proportion of Indian women who actually find a job is slightly lower than in Saudi Arabia, where 22% do. And although social attitudes hold women back, they are not immutable. In fact, women's employment is often a catalyst for social enlightenment, rather than a consequence of it.
The role of the Government
The best thing the Government can do to increase the supply of workers is to increase the demand for labor in general. If growth is rapid, hiring strong, and labor scarce, then employers will have a powerful incentive to attract more women into the workforce, offering them higher wages and more secure, convenient jobs.
Unfortunately, India's notorious bureaucracy has restricted the growth of labour-intensive, women-friendly industries, such as the garment trade, which has flourished next door in Bangladesh.
As the Indian government tries to encourage private employment, it coddles prestigious industries, especially this one, which is unlikely to employ the masses. And the state is extremely sexist in its own hiring: only 11% of central government employees are women.
working women in india
The Government has adopted some useful reforms. Factory rules soon to come into effect will ease restrictions on women's working hours, which should make them more attractive to hire. But I could do more.
India's rural work scheme offers flexible employment to many women. However, work is not always available and pay is often late.
The plan should also pay salaries directly to women rather than to households. A study by Erica Field of Duke University and her colleagues showed that giving women control over their salaries increased their bargaining power with their husbands, which in turn gave them more freedom to work.
There is the potential to start a virtuous cycle. As more women in a district take up employment, their husbands feel less ashamed of their wives moving away from home and home.