There has already been much discussion about the low
rates of employment growth in India that are reflected
in the latest large sample round to the NSSO surveys.
One of the features that has contributed to this decline
in employment growth in the most recent five year
period is the slump in female employment, which can
be considered as one of the more important elements
in the overall deceleration of employment generation.
As was shown in a previous article (''The Latest Employment
Trends from the NSSO''), applying the participation
rates of the NSSO survey of 2009-10 to interpolated
population figures from Censuses 2001 and 2011 shows
that total female employment actually declined at
an annual rate of 1.72 per cent between 2004-05 and
2009-10, while male employment (mostly in casual work)
showed a slight increase, albeit much lower than in
the previous period, at the rate of 1.72 per cent.
Clearly, this is a significant and potentially very
disturbing result, especially given that women's work
participation rates are already quite low in India
compared to most other parts of the developing world.
It should be borne in mind, of course, that work participation
rates as described by official surveys are not really
good indicators of the productive contributions of
women.
This is particularly so in large parts of India, where
much of the economic activity of women, whether in
the home or outside, is simply not recognised as such
by other household members and even by the women themselves.
A significant part of women's work is not just unpaid,
therefore: it is also socially unrecognised. This
is true of not just social reproduction, but other
economic activity where women's work is rendered invisible
by social perceptions.
That is why many social scientists take women's work
participation rate as one of the proxy indicators
of women's overall status in society and of gender
empowerment. It is not just because paid work provides
income individually to women rather than to male members
of the household. It is also because the productive
contribution of women is typically less recognised
in societies where women are undervalued in general.
Chart 1 indicates the movement of female work participation
rates in India from the late 1970s. Several features
of interest emerge from this chart. First, rural participation
rates are nearly three times the urban rates, though
they still remain relatively low at only around 30
per cent compared to around double that in most East
Asian countries. Second, the longer term trend appears
one of gentle decline even within these relatively
low rates, which is truly remarkable in a rapidly
growing economy. The experience of most other developing
countries in phases of rapid growth has been that
of rapid and often substantial increase in female
overt work participation, as dynamic capitalism tends
to draw in women to expand domestic labour supply
for paid employment.
Chart
1 >> Click
to Enlarge
The
third feature that seems to come out from Chart 1
is that if anything, 2004-05 is a bit of an outlier
in terms of increasing female work participation,
whereas 2009-10 indicates a reversion to the longer
term trend of gradual decline. If this is indeed true
(which of course requires further examination) then
it suggests that inadequate capture of women's work
in the latest sample round may not be the most important
reason for the evident decline. Rather, the more pressing
question should be why women's work participation
rates have been so low in India and have remained
low despite rapid economic growth and many other changes
in society.
(In any case, that explanation - of poor investigative
behaviour during the survey - does not solve the basic
conundrum: if changing labour demand results in more
demand for women in paid work, this is more likely
to be captured by investigators than home-based work
that is economically productive but unrecognised.
Obviously, there has not been such a trend of evident
increases in demand for women in paid employment –
and that is a real paradox.)
Suppose we even consider that for whatever reason,
2004-05 was an unusual year within this dataset. So
let us consider the change in women's employment status
for the decade as a whole, that is, from 1999-2000
to 2009-10. Table 1 provides the details for women
in the age group of 15 years and above, and even these
are quite startling.
Remember that the 2000s were a decade of unprecedented
rapid GDP growth for the Indian economy. In this decade,
the number of women aged 15 years or more increased
by 86.5 million. But only 8.9 per cent of them joined
the labour force, and only 7.5 per cent of them were
described as gainfully employed. This relative lack
of increase in the number of working women in a period
of major economic expansion is not just unusual, it
is also hard to explain in terms of most standard
economic approaches.
Table
1: Change in work status of women
1999-2000 to 2009-10
(millions of women aged 15 years and above)
|
Population |
86.5
|
In
education |
17.5
|
In
Labour Force |
7.7
|
Unemployed |
1.1
|
At
Work |
6.5
|
Self-Employed |
2.4
|
Regular
Employee |
4.2
|
Casual
Employee |
-0.2
|
Table
1 >>
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to Enlarge
The really large increase – accounting for more than
20 per cent of the increase in number of women overall
– was in education. Of course this was dominantly
confined to younger women, but it is clearly a process
to be greatly welcomed. Chart 2 shows that the most
recent period has experienced the biggest increase
in the number of young women in education. This is
particularly prevalent for urban girls aged 15-19
years, nearly 70 per cent of whom are now studying
as their principal activity. But the recent relatively
fast increase in education for girls even in rural
areas is a good sign.
Chart
2 >>
Click
to Enlarge
When we look at the patterns of employment of the
relatively few women who are recognised as gainfully
employed, even in this aspect the apparent lack of
change appears to be more striking than any dynamism.
Chart 3 shows the distribution of women workers by
type of contract. Once again, the year 2004-05 appears
as an outlier, when there was apparently a big increase
in self-employment and an associated decline in the
share of casual work.
Obviously, we will need more disaggregated data to
delve into the actual processes at work in this case,
but a quick assessment suggests that in rural areas
the medium term process has been of decline in self-employment
and increase in casual work of women, with regular
employment persistently occupying a negligible space.
Chart
3 >>
Click
to Enlarge
In urban areas, as shown in Chart 4, a somewhat similar
process seems to have been at work in terms of the
relative shares of self-employed and casual workers.
But the real story for urban women is the increase
in regular eployment, which has continued into the
most recent year. When this was first observed for
2004-05, it created much joy in official circles,
until it was pointed out that the largest increase
in urban regular enployment of women was in the form
of domestic service – as maids, cooks and cleaners,
hardly the most desirable or dynamic forms of work.
This accounted for 3 million more urban women workers
in the period 1999-2000 to 2004-05, far exceeding
the increase in ''export-oriented'' sectors like garments,
leather and IT-enabled activities.
We do not yet have the detailed data that will allow
us to examine whether a similar process was at work
in the most recent quinquennnium. But in any case,
that experience should give us pause in interpreting
the current evidence, and not give rise to undue or
premature celebration.
Chart
4 >>
Click
to Enlarge
The evidence on female unemployment rates adds to
the uneasiness involved in including 2004-05, which
seems more and more to have been an unusual year.
Even excluding that year, Chart 5 suggests that open
unemployment rates for women have remained at fairly
high levels over the period of high economic growth.
Throughout this period, more than 7 per cent of urban
women who count themselves as in the labour force
were unemployed and actively looking for work but
not finding it, as their usual principal activity.
In terms of currrent daily status – the activity that
they pursued on an average day in the previous week
– the rate of open unemployment has been even higher,
at around 10 per cent. In rural areas, as expected,
both rates were lower but still current daily status
unemployment was significantly high at more than 8
per cent, and show a major increase compared to the
late 1980s.
Chart
5 >>
Click
to Enlarge
The other depressing feature that emerges from the
latest round of NSS data is that economic growth has
still not generated a process of employment diversification
for women. Even more than men, and substantially so,
women workers remain stuck in low value added but
arduous work in agriculture. Around two-thirds of
women workers are still employed in agriculture as
their principal economic activity, while the share
for men workers has fallen to less than half.
Chart
6 >>
Click
to Enlarge
For both men and women this is actually an appalling
rate of employment diversification. Every single development
success that we have seen in history has been associated
with a movement of workers away from primary activities
to more value added work in secondary and tertiary
sectors. The stubborn domination of agriculture as
the primary source of work for most of our workers
(especially women) is a particular problem given the
agrarian crisis that has persisted for nearly two
decades in the Indian countryside, which makes involvement
in such work increasingly fraught and financially
unviable.
All in all, these patterns of women's work – and indeed
therefore of men's work – amount to a severe indictment
of the Indian growth story, in terms of what it is
delivering to the bulk of Indian workers.
*
This article was originally published in The Business
Line, on August 9, 2011.
