BHUBANESWAR: More women in the state are entering the labour workforce, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. This has been pointed out in the India Employment Report-2024 (2005 to 2022), prepared by International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Institute for Human Development.
Among the 22 states evaluated for the study, Odisha stands at the 15th position when it comes to people aged over 15 years participating in the labour force. The labour force participation rate (LFPR) is an estimate of the number of people actively engaged in the workforce.
In 2022, the state’s LFPR stood at 46.23 per cent (pc) against the country average of 49.25 pc. This was an increase by 12.8 percentage points compared to the labour participation rate of 2019 when it was 33.43 pc. The report said that this rise, along with other labour market changes, is consistent with more women coming into the workforce in response to crises.
The gender distribution shows that the female LFPR increased by 2.12 pc when compared with the male counterparts between 2019 and 2022. The report stated that the male workforce participation was 81.8 pc in 2005 but it came down to 72.7 pc in 2019 and further declined to 71.8 pc in 2022, registering a decline of almost 10 pc in the 17 years period.
The country has one of the lowest female labour force participation rates in the world, at about 25 pc. In Odisha, 28.13 pc of women were into the workforce in 2005. Although this declined to 18.6 pc till 2019, it again rose to 20.8 pc by 2022.
A senior officer of the Labour department, requesting anonymity, said the women’s decline in the workforce between 2012 and 2019 can be attributed to a variety of factors. However, there was a substantial increase of women in casual employment and as subsidiary workers (informal employment or no-skill manual jobs) between 2019 and 2022, when many women needed economic activity to support their families, particularly due to Covid-19 pandemic.
The report classifies employment into three categories - self-employment, regular employment and casual employment. Self-employed persons are those who are own-account workers, working employers, unpaid family workers and home-based workers. Those with regular employment are all wage and salary workers who are on relatively long job tenure and usually paid wages or a salary on a weekly or monthly basis. Those into casual employment are persons who do not have any tenure and are mostly employed on a daily wage basis.
The report indicates that more women in the state are in the casual workforce while their percentage in self-employment has only decreased. Self-employment among women in the state has witnessed a declining trend since 2005 when it was high at 74 pc. But by 2022, it came down to 20.38 pc.
PRESENT STATISTICS
Odisha ranks 15th in labour force participation
12.8% increase in workforce in 2022 as compared to 2019
Female LFPR in Odisha 20.8 pc against 25 pc in the country in 2022
More women into casual workforce
Sharp decline in self-employment in women from 74 pc in 2005 to 20.38 pc in 2022