Relevance : GS Paper II
India’s recent election gave unprecedented focus on women’s employment.
What data show?
- The female labour force participation rate in India fell to 23.3% in 2017-2018.
- This decline has been sharper in rural areas.
Factors responsible for low workforce participation
- low social acceptability of women working outside the household
- lack of access to safe and secure workspaces
- widespread prevalence of poor and unequal wages,
- dearth of decent and suitable jobs.
- engagement in subsistence-level work
- Educated women efusing to do casual wage labour
Way forward
- facilitating women’s access to decent work by
- providing public services,
- eliminating discrimination in hiring,
- ensuring equal and decent wages, and
- improving women’s security in public spaces.
- recognise, reduce, redistribute, and remunerate women’s unpaid work.
- Fair and decent living wages and appropriate social security
- safe and dignified working and living conditions for migrant workers
- allocate social housing spaces for women workers
- enumerate and remunerate the unpaid and underpaid work.
