It's 4.00 pm. Savita, who is currently in the office meeting, is thinking about the dinner she has to make for her in-laws as soon as she reaches her home. She also has to cater to her son by helping him build a craft project for his school. She is concerned about her mother in law's deteriorating health. She is also aware about the constant pressure she is facing to have another child. And with all the overthinking, she has finally arrived at a decision to leave the job.
Women in India comprise about 48.4% of the total population, while its contribution to the labour force remains around 24% in comparison to its neighbouring states such as Bangladesh and China which are 38% and 61% respectively. The issues responsible for lower female force participation can be theoretically explained through Claudia Goldin's research on women’s historical role in the labour market which won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Claudia Goldin put forth several reasons in relation to socio-cultural-economic themes that play an eminent role in shaping women’s entry and continuance in the labour market. Her research, which has been discussed further in this article, adds immense value to analyse Indian women’s participation in the labour market.
Factors that are responsible for low participation of the Female labour force in the Indian Economy fall under several themes. Prominent among them are two factors that are highly co- relational: the first being occupational segregation engulfed within societal norms and expectations. Women are highly overrepresented and neglected in the care economy. Care economy essentially focuses upon activities that are performed daily in homes which include taking care of elderly and infants. 44.5% of women cite child care and personal commitments in homemaking for not participating in the workforce which reinforces the idea of motherhood penalty. The presence of women in the workforce is also increasingly tied up with the presence of in-laws and the status of husband’s salary.
Women, when they share their space with an unemployed mother in law are 20 to 30% less likely to be employed than the women who are not with their mother-in-laws. Likewise, the likelihood of employment of married women increases by 50% (rural) and 70% (urban) if they have an employed mother-in-law. In terms of the husband's salary, if his earnings are rising, the probability of wife working gets lower. For Goldin, these arguments stem from women choosing societal expectations over opportunities that a growing market might offer in return. Women seem to choose social expectations over career because of fear of social stigmatisation, legislative and institutional measures such as Maternal Benefit Act, etc. But this choice has a drastic and long term effect on a female's earning and career progression ahead. This leads to the second reason for the low female labour force participation rate, i.e, poor availability of time causes depreciation in women’s market skills thus hampering their entry.
There are two ways to analyse it, one, women’s overwhelming presence in the care economy is highly invisibilized. Second, there’s a spillover effect upon women’s opportunities due to poor availability of time faced by women in general. Women are made incapable of contributing to the mainstream economy due to time poverty and double burden. Out of 168 hours, 34.6 hours are spent by women on extended SNA activities (System of National Accounts) that include caring, household, activities of social reproduction as compared to only 3.6 hours spent by males leading to less time for personal growth for women. The less time women spend on sharpening their skills, the more they face discrimination in the workforce. Men earn 82% of labour income in India, while women only 18% of labour income.
Whereas, if the invisible labour (women’s contribution to care economy which remains unmonetized and uncalculated) is accounted for, it will contribute to 7.5% of Indian GDP, which given its massive circular economy importance is not even accounted in official labour surveys that leads to underestimating women’s contribution in the Indian economy. Goldin’s research calls this phenomena as the parenthood effect, the period after the child birth sees decrease in women’s ability to do remunerative work and also her wage. Women’s extended withdrawal after childbirth also leads to a massive wage gap. The withdrawal also discourages companies to employ women in the workforce where the sectors need constant availability, skill enhancement of the employees leading to women facing labour market withdrawal as well.
It is also true that there are other reasons behind low female labour participation such as pursuing higher studies, institutional factors such as workplace safety as well. But the depth of low FLFPR (Female Labor Force Participation Rate) remains to be societal and economic in nature.
In order to arrive at solutions, policy makers should cover different dimensions starting essentially from economic valuation of the care economy and further skill development in fields such as STEM that have higher returns. In addition to these, focus should also be upon work-life related reforms that includes flexibility in working hours, creche facilities which will invite both public and private investment. But overall, the approach of bringing the women into the workforce should be to dig deeper at the heart of the expectation of being a woman, which means policy solutions should start with understanding the marital and familial expectations engulfing female gender, market policies will take shape accordingly.
Shreya Shinde
