Towards a Framework for Forging Links: Exploring the Connections between Women’s Education, Empowerment and Employment

Abstract

It is a common belief that there are substantial returns on education, both direct and indirect and gainful employment is regarded as one of the expected outcomes of education. However, existing analyses of the employment–unemployment trends in India indicate an inverse relationship between women’s education and employment. Within such a context this article seeks to raise the question of whether the education system can address the problem of educated women withdrawing from the labour force even as attempts are made to transform other structural factors that impinge on the situation. Feminist concerns about empowerment frame this discussion on education and employment.

Gender Equity in Education

“…In the context of India, the absence of educated women in the labor force became a matter of intense discussion in India following upon the publication of the results of the 66th National Sample Survey Organisation's (NSSO) quinquennial round of the employment-non-employment survey for the period 2004-2005 to 2009-2010 and the annual reports of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India (Abraham 2013;Kannan and Raveendran 2012;Pappu 2015;Rangarajan et al 2011). Initial explanations for the declining LFPR were that larger numbers of women were joining educational institutions rather than the labor force.…”

Residential Education for Disadvantaged Girls: An Alternate Field?

“…In this regard, residential schools take a step further as they physically separate students from their social origins, bringing them into new shared spaces that they co-inhabit with others, under greater supervision. We probe one such effort in the context of a large, national-level programme that, in its stated objective and design, seeks to challenge norms that are informed by one’s caste and gender (Dutt, 2010; Jain & Rajagopal, 2012; Pappu, 2015).…”

“…Gender is ‘inextricably intertwined with other critical markers including region, religion, class, caste, sexual orientation and disability’ (Pappu & Goswami, 2015, p. 160). For a girl child from a backward community, disadvantaged along the lines of caste and gender, there are at least two struggles she has to face and any sincere effort to empower has to enable them to fight both (Kumar & Gupta, 2008).…”