The latest data on women’s employment in India once again proves that gender bias is alive and kicking. As more companies returned to only-in-office work after the pandemic, the share of women in salaried jobs in urban India decreased from 54 per cent in the first quarter of this financial year to 52.8 per cent in the second. This is of concern because the Periodic Labour Force Survey shows that the latest reported quarter had the lowest urban wage employment of any quarter in the last six years. The share of self-employed women rose to 40.3 per cent from 39.2 per cent during the same period. So women as fixed income earners considered a more desirable form of earning, declined at the expense of self-employed women—a euphemism for unpaid household and farm work, or jobs at small enterprises.
An IIM Ahmedabad study released in February this year estimated that women spend 7.2 hours on unpaid domestic work, compared to 2.8 hours spent by men. If all women were paid for their household and other chores, it would amount to 7.5 per cent of India’s GDP, said an SBI report in March 2023. An Azim Premji University study supported these observations and added that self-employment went up 14 per cent to nearly 65 per cent between June 2018 and December 2022. Some other indicators paint a similar picture. The nation’s female labour force participation rose to just under 33 per cent after the pandemic from 30 per cent before—lower than in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The wage gap, while narrower than in the early 2000s, is still wide—by the end of calendar 2022, women earned 76 per cent of what men in similar jobs did.
The upper echelons of the corporate world are no better. Women account for only 24.7 per cent of all independent directors; their number slips to 19.7 per cent for directorships of companies registered under the Companies Act of 2013. The main factors discouraging women’s employment are deeply entrenched patriarchal prejudices and safety concerns. We have seen that the pressure of long hours of unpaid family work also goes against their ability to get regular employment. Apart from passing resolutions and running promotional campaigns, the private and public sectors must put their money where their mouth is. They should begin a recruitment drive aimed at ensuring a more inclusive work environment.