Women and Work in India: Descriptive Evidence and a Review of Potential Policies

Fletcher, Erin K.; Pande, Rohini; Troyer-Moore, Charity

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3116310

Cited by 93 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Both the NSS and IHDS record a great willingness to work on the part of women currently not employed. NSS data from 2011 to 2012, reported by Fletcher et al (2018), reveal that more than 30% of the women engaged in domestic duties would like to work. IHDS data show that 65% of women who are not currently working would like to work if they could find suitable work.…”

Section: Role Of Public Policies In Expanding Women's Employment Oppomentioning

confidence: 99%

The Paradox of Declining Female Work Participation in an Era of Economic Growth

Desai

Joshi

2019

Ind. J. Labour Econ.

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The past three decades have seen the advent of major transformations in the Indian economy. The economy has achieved average growth rates of 5-9%, education has risen sharply for both men and women, fertility rates have declined, and infrastructure facilities, particularly access to electricity, cooking gas and piped water, have improved. All these factors are expected to reduce the demand for women's time spent in domestic chores and increase their opportunities for paid work. Paradoxically, however, the National Sample Surveys document a substantial decline in women's work participation rates (WPRs), particularly for rural women. Optimistic interpretation of these trends suggests that increasing prosperity accounts for women's labour force withdrawal. For young women, rising school and college enrolment is incompatible with demands of the workforce. For both young and older women, rising prosperity allows for withdrawal from economic activities to focus on domestic duties. Pessimistic interpretations of these trends suggest that it is absence of suitable jobs rather than women's withdrawal from the labour force that accounts for declining female work participation. A third explanation focuses on increasing measurement errors in work participation data from the National Sample Surveys. This paper examines these diverse explanations using data from National Sample Surveys and India Human Development Surveys for 2004-2005 and 2011-2012 and finds that: (1) Decline in rural women's work participation recorded by National Sample Surveys may be overstated; (2) supply factors explain a relatively small proportion of the decline in women's work participation rates; (3) public policies such as improvement and transportation facilities and MGNREGS that enhance work opportunities for women are associated with increased participation by women in the work force.

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Section: Role Of Public Policies In Expanding Women's Employment Oppomentioning

confidence: 99%

The Paradox of Declining Female Work Participation in an Era of Economic Growth

Desai

Joshi

2019

Ind. J. Labour Econ.

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“…India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), launched in 2005 and which reached 76 million workers in 2016-17, targets the rural poor and guarantees 100 days of wage work per year, with a quota of at least 30 percent women participants. In 2016, 52 percent of participants were women (Fletcher et al, 2018). Under the program, men and women earn equal wage rates, and childcare is also provided for groups of women with children under 6 years.…”

Section: Workfare Programs •mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, employment for older age groups is less responsive to economic growth (right panel of Figure 1). This is an important policy question which countries like India have recently been grappling with (Fletcher et al, 2018). Younger women, who are less likely to have children and may have greater mobility (Including opportunities for education), could be more responsive to changes in income and market conditions -but better data are needed on economic opportunities and constraints faced by rural women overall.…”

Section: Understanding How Rural Employment Responds To Market Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the Measurement of Rural Women's Employment: Global Momentum and Survey Research Priorities

Koolwal¹

2019

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The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

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“…Regardless of the nature of work, women are paid close to half of men's wages. This suggests direct wage discrimination as well as women's limited access to tasks with higher remuneration (Fletcher, Pande, and Troyer-Moore 2017). The inflexibility of wages paid to women regardless of the tasks done by them, however, is reflective of women in the labor market as 'inferior bearers of labor' instead of 'bearers of inferior labor' (Kabeer 1996).…”

Section: During Migration: the Gendering Of Migrant Destinations And mentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal masculinities: seasonal labor migration and masculinities in rural western India

Rai

2019

Gender, Place & Culture

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In this research article, I study seasonal labor migration in rural western India to understand gender negotiations in the course of labor migration. Based on qualitative research conducted in six villages in rural Maharashtra state in Western India during the early Kharif cropping season in 2014 and during Kharif and Rabi cropping seasons in 2015-16, I examine gendered labor in migrant home communities and at various rural and urban employment destinations, the relationship of labor to the social construction of masculinities, and gender negotiations across space. I show that in their home communities, the politics of resistance of returnee laborers can be understood by examining how returnee men deploy 'protest masculinities' to subvert claims on their body and labor by elite men who have historically been in a dominant relationship with the laborers. Yet, these protest masculinities are buttressed by the continued exploitation of women's labor. I also show the flexibility of masculinities. More broadly, I show that migrant destinations themselves are gendered spaces that are constructed by the active consensual work of women and male migrants and employers alike. Second, seasonal migrants enter migration cycles from rural spaces that are gendered, both in production and social reproduction. I find that rural workplaces are the preferred choice of destination for migrant women; a choice that migrant men find reasonable. This is so because rural destinations are already gendered as spaces conducive for social reproduction and discursively constructed in the same terms as the idealized woman subject.

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Women and Work in India: Descriptive Evidence and a Review of Potential Policies

Cited by 93 publications

References 25 publications

The Paradox of Declining Female Work Participation in an Era of Economic Growth

The Paradox of Declining Female Work Participation in an Era of Economic Growth

Improving the Measurement of Rural Women's Employment: Global Momentum and Survey Research Priorities

Seasonal masculinities: seasonal labor migration and masculinities in rural western India

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