Where are the women in India’s growth?

E Revathi

‘Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the broadest quantitative measure of a nation’s economic activity. GDP represents the monetary value of all goods and services produced within a country in a specific period of time.’ The sectors of agriculture, industry, and services contribute to the GDP. Women contribute to the economy as workers. However, not all work that women perform is accounted for in the GDP of developing countries including India. This is because the work that women do is only partly visible.

Economic and non-economic work
The work that women do falls under two categories – productive and reproductive. Work done for pay in cash or kind; work done for the market, which has an ‘exchange value’; work done for subsistence or producing things at home for own consumption are productive or economic in nature which have ‘use value’. For example, a woman’s work as agriculture labour is paid work having an exchange value, but a woman’s work on the family farm is unpaid but has ‘use value’. Therefore, economic activity is defined as all the market activities performed for pay or profit, which result in the production of goods and services for exchange, and all the non-market activities relating to agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, and quarrying, which result in the production of primary goods for own consumption. Reproductive work includes biological reproduction as well as the care and maintenance of the existing workforce and the future workforce. Such work is considered non-economic.

Often, in developing countries there is no clear demarcation between paid (outside) work and unpaid or subsistence work done within or around the home. Women are mostly engaged in unpaid work in agriculture, traditional industry, and service sectors. For example, agricultural activities related to crop and livestock or dairy are performed by women. These unpaid or subsistence activities are underreported and underestimated which often results in undervaluing women’s work and hence their contribution to the economy.

Women workers are underestimated in our country because of two factors. The first is that some activities which are considered as economic activities by the United Nations System of National Accounting (such as processing of primary products for own consumption) are not considered so in India. The second factor is that because the nature of their work does not require them to report to official enumerating agencies, women are reported as non-workers.

Trends in women’s employment: over time, across regions, sectors, and types of industry
In order to understand the level and nature of employment of women in India we need to be acquainted with the concepts of work. The labour force of a country constitutes all the persons who are working, seeking work, and unemployed or available for work. The labour force participation rate (LFPR) is the proportion of the country’s population that is actively engaged in the labour market either by working or seeking work. The National Sample Survey Organisation, which conducts nationwide surveys and presents data on employment and unemployment, keeps records of people’s activity status for particular periods depending on their participation in economic or non-economic activities. The activity status – employed, unemployed, and not in labour force – is given for the usual status (a full year) or the current status (weekly or daily).

The rate of growth of women workers in the country was high between 1999-2000 and 2004-05. It was higher than that of the male workers in fact. During this period women were increasingly employed in garment factories, computer and related industries, private households, hair dressing and beauty salons, coaching centres, telecommunication, research and development sectors. The rate of growth of women workers in the agriculture sector also was high, at 3 percent during this period, while that for men was at 0.7 percent. This growth was so unprecedented that it came to be known as ‘feminization of agriculture’.

But after 2004-05, the trend in women’s work participation changed. The Indian economy underwent a structural transformation during this period. The contribution of the agriculture sector to the GDP fell behind that of the service sector. However, the number of people employed in agriculture did not reduce commensurately. While the service sector grew, employment growth in this sector was slow. This phenomenon is referred to as ‘jobless growth’. The burden of jobless growth has been borne mostly by women, as the increasing number of working age men are being absorbed by the labour market. Women’s participation to the country’s economy has dropped in India over the past decade when compared with other emerging economies.

The overall labour force to population ratio (in the age group of 15 years and above) in India was 56 percent in 2011-12. The female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) was 31 percent. If we look at the trend of female labour participation rates we find that fewer women are working, especially in the rural areas. There are many reasons given by scholars for this falling trend. More rural women are getting educated; the average income in rural households has increased and therefore women are not required to contribute to the income, the increased use of machinery in agriculture has reduced the demand for female labour, and the availability of limited quality employment with social security and decent work conditions are some factors that have caused the fall in women’s participation in the labour market.

There are variations in the female labour participation as well. For example, in the north east region women participate to a greater extent. Even in south and west India, women’s participation rates are higher when compared to north India and east India. Similarly, in rural areas their participation is more than in urban areas. The distribution of women workers across the three main sectors of the economy – agriculture, industry, and services – shows that in rural areas 70 percent of the women are engaged in agriculture, 22 percent in industry and only 8 percent in the service sectors. In the urban areas it is the reverse, 55 percent of women workers are working in the service sector, 33 percent in industry, and only 12 percent in agriculture.

Nature and quality of women’s employment

The production of goods and services in India is to a large extent of subsistence and unorganized in nature. The informal or
unorganized sector comprises all privately owned unincorporated enterprises (which have not been granted formal corporate status) employing less than 10 workers. Informal workers account for 83 percent of the total workers in the economy. Women predominantly work in the informal sector which is characterized by insecurity, instability, low earnings, and no social security. Around 78 percent of the female workforce is engaged in traditional industries such as agriculture, making tobacco products, etc. The number of women in regular employment is less but high in casual labour. Productivity is low in the industries or type of works in which women are concentrated.

Within the service sector, the IT industry is more gender friendly and women professionals constitute 12.5 percent of the industry. However, even here there are fewer women in higher positions.

Women’s contribution to the GDP

There are some estimates regarding women’s contribution to the GDP in India. According to one study done by Raveendran in 2010, 31 percent of women workers contributed 19.8 percent of the GDP in 2004-05. Of this, 11.7 percent came from the informal sector and 8.1 percent from the formal sector. The formal or organized sector contributes over 50 percent to the GDP. The contribution of women to the GDP through agriculture is 41 percent, through education 41 percent, and through health services 38 percent. The annual growth rate of the contribution of women to the GDP has been lower than that of the men. However, there is the problem of underestimation of their contribution as discussed above. The share of women in the total GDP would be higher if incomes from the activities which are under-reported also are taken into account. Then the share of women would be at 25.3 percent (Raveendran 2010).Thus, we can see a direct relationship between women’s labour force participation and their contribution to the GDP. Increasing female labour force participation through pro-growth and pro-women policies can increase the economic growth rate by 2.4 percent.

Unequal wages and assets

The wages of female workers are lower by at least 20-50 percent than those of men across most employment categories and locations. The average wage differences between men and women are not for differentials within similar jobs, occupations, and activities, but reflect to some extent the differences in the structure of employment. Women are found in low wage jobs more often than men (Kelkar 2013). Gender gap in wages varies across types of industry. The gender gap in wages is higher in the case of services (social, community, and personal) and lower in regular manufacturing sectors. Education is an important factor in reducing the gender gap in wages. A woman worker with no education received only 53 percent of a man’s wage in a regular job in the rural areas, but with a graduate degree she received 70 percent of the wage as her male counterpart. Education acts as a leveller between men and women as far as regular jobs are concerned. The wages of female workers increased faster with education than men in regular jobs. The gender bias in asset ownership also has an impact on the labour market participation of women. The gender differentials in wage are due to gender discrimination as well, which encourages women to opt to do unskilled and semi-skilled work, and low level management and other production related work. The new legislation, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2006, has stipulated parity in wages for men and women. Research studies have pointed that since then wage parity has been maintained with the exception of a few reported cases (Kelkar 2009).

The Constitution of India has provided equality of opportunity in terms of public employment through Article 16, which prohibits discrimination in employment under the state on the basis of sex. The principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’ though not a fundamental right is a constitutional goal under the Directive Principles. The Equal Remuneration Act was passed in 1976 though the act was found to be insufficient and ineffective in achieving parity in wages. In recent times, women’s unequal rights to family property was addressed by passing of the Hindu Succession Amendment Act (HSAA) in 2005. This act gives daughters the same rights on par with sons to inherit property including agricultural land from family. The state has also started to assign property rights in the name of women.

Concluding remarks

Women contribute substantially to the GDP of India. But not all their work is accounted for in the GDP. This is due both to conceptual differences and also under-reporting by women. A recent report by McKinsey Global Institute says that India can add 46 lakh crore rupees to its GDP if it succeeds in increasing the participation of women workers from the current 31 percent to 41 percent by the year 2025.

Ideas for the classroom

Female labour force participation in India is amongst the lowest in the emerging economies. Why do you think so? Engage in the following questions and discussions with your class to explore this topic.

• Why is it that we find more women from the southern and western parts of the country actively participating in the country’s labour force? Could there be socio-cultural factors involved?
• Women’s empowerment and welfare should be every government’s priority. Find out about the schemes and programmes that Indian governments have put in place for women. Research about programmes like Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA) and Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP).
• If there are more women working today what are the reasons? Conduct a small survey in the neighbourhood. Do women today have better working conditions and perks?
• All of us love the crunchy Lijjat pappad we eat with our lunch or dinner. Perhaps it is time we learnt a little more about the woman behind this successful enterprise – Jashwantiben Popat. Write short profiles of successful women like Jashwantiben Popat and Indira Nooyi (CEO of PepsiCo India). These profiles can be compiled to form a book.

References

1. Raveendran G (2010): Contribution of Women to the National Economy, ILO Asia-pacific Working Paper Series, ILO.
2. Kelkar Govind (2013): AT the Threshold of Economic Empowerment: Women, Work and Gender Regimes in Asia, ILO Asia-Pacific Working Paper Series.
3. India Labour and Employment Report 2014, Institute for Human Development.

The author is Professor at the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad. She teaches Development Theory. Her areas of research are development studies, agriculture, and gender studies with attention to land and women empowerment. She has authored and co-authored around 15 research papers and two books. She is actively involved in policy dialogue in the reconstruction of the Telangana state. She can be reached at revathi@cess.ac.in.