Gender At Work- Perspectives, Nuances, and Gaps,

 

May 1 is marked as the International Workers Day, globally. This year’s theme “Act together to build a positive safety and health culture”, notes the importance of a cohesive action to address the vagaries of the COVID-19 pandemic. For this edition of our newsletter, we bring a conversation with Dr. Vibhuti Patel, the well-known gender economist, and women’s rights activist. She delves deep into what are the existing trends of female labor participation in India. Read the excerpts from the interview. Her LinkedIn profile here:

All the views expressed here are the views of Dr. Vibhuti Patel, and should not be attributed to Population First.

As per the United Nations, Women constitute ½ of the world’s population, 2/3 of the world’s work force but get 1/10th of the world’s income and 1% of the world’s Wealth.

Q1: How would you define work participation of women in labour force? Why is it important to the economic growth of a nation? What are the various aspects when one studies it?

“Work” can be defined as the physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something. Women all around the world have been doing paid, underpaid and largely unpaid work in homes, factories, fields, forests and mines. Over and above 3 Cs-cooking, cleaning and caring, large number of women do activities such as collection of fuel, fodder and water, animal care, kitchen gardening, raising poultry that augment family resources. If women would not this work; these goods would have to be purchased from the market. Unpaid care economy plays pivotal role in the economic growth of the nation in the developing as well as industrially advanced nations.

For the framing of development policies, national level statistics is the principal data input, but this is largely impaired by the undercounting of women, both as workers and those available for work. The first barrier is of course the definition of work vis-à-vis women’s work. We continue to relate work only to remunerative aspects of work as work. Indian women are engaged in two kinds of work; one that produces an income and other that does not. They are known as paid and unpaid work respectively. Even where women are doing work which is market-oriented, the special characteristics of women’s work make such work ‘invisible’, ‘non-recognised’ as for example, home based piece rate workers. The census concept of ‘work’ overemphasize production for market and although it does include some non-market production for own consumption such as cultivation where men are also involved, it excludes by a strange logic other type of production for own consumption such as livestock maintenance (done mostly by women) and hence these figures do not correspond with the non-market output in the national accounts.

The lack of freedom of choice, power and material resources, traditional gender roles and norms, stand – in the way of women’s development, as is evident in most parts of the world. Intersectional vulnerabilities of caste, class, race, ethnicity, religion, geographical locations and gender keep large majority of women in a precarious economic status. Significantly, even in the pyramid of poverty, women are the poorest of the poor and at the rock bottom. Hence all efforts to reduce poverty are inseparable from action agenda of the gender equity and gender equality based on intersectional justice. Researches indicate that gender equality measures that are gender responsive in the long run leads to reduction of poverty. In fact, unequal power structures for women and men constitute an impediment to economic growth and substantive democratic development. Equal opportunities for women and men to own land and assets, to earn money and to participate in working life, are essential for sustainable development in the long run.

Q2. Recent studies of long-term trends by NSS suggest that female labour force participation rates in India have been hovering around a 20% mark for the past several years. Moreover, there is gap in the rural and urban population’s involvement. What could be the reason for this specially in wake of the various policies being promoted by the government?

As this graph reveals, there has been continuous decline in the work participation rate of women in the Indian Economy from 29% in 1983 to 17% in 2018.

Source: NSSO, 68th Round, Report No. 554, Employment and Unemployment Situation in India, 2011–12 and Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2017–18, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, National Statistical Office, Government of India

The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) recently released results of its Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for the year 2018-19. The estimates show a marginal improvement in overall labour force participation rates, more so for rural women, up from 18.2 percent in 2017-18 to 19.7 percent in 2018-19. According to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Not only have more women lost jobs compared to men during the pandemic, but The number of women actively looking for work each month reduced to educed by three million between 2019 and 2021.

Source: NSSO Rounds 38th(1983-84), 50th (1993-94), 61st (2004-2005), 68th, 75th) (2017-18)

Even the sectoral profile of women’s employment has changed from 1983-84 to 2017-18. There has been continuous defeminization of primary sector i.e. agriculture and allied activities. In the manufacturing sector also, after 2011, women’s work participation declined from the secondary sector i.e. manufacturing and Industry sector due to automation, mechanisation of labour processes and rationalisation that resulted in the retrenchment of women workers. Only in the tertiary sector i.e. service sector women’s employment has increased. Here, too there is nothing to be jubilant about as large percentage of the employment is in domestic work.

There are multiple reasons for low work participation of women determined by intersectional vulnerabilities across caste, class, ethnicity, religion, location and gender. Researches by women’s studies experts have shown the following reasons:

Triple Burden

Most working women continue to face the triple burden of job, child care and housework with very little support, either from their partners or the government. Despite the fact that women have entered the workplace in huge numbers, their new economic and social responsibilities are often forgotten where family life is concerned.

Source: Paid and Unpaid Work of Women & Men: Time Use Survey, 2019: Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation, Government of India, 2020

On an average, Indian women spend 299 minutes a day on unpaid domestic services while men spend 97 minutes, according to the 2019 NSS report on time use. Unless gender norms change to sharing of domestic duties by male and female members of the family, women will always be stuck in the private domain.

Sexual Harassment

Women’s Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (WICCI) Council of Ethics released a survey-based report, The Annual Review on the State of Sexual Harassment in India, in March 2022, which found that 50 percent and 55 percent of respondents respectively had experienced “physical contact or advances” or inappropriate touching, including pinching, patting, rubbing, or purposefully brushing up against another person” at least once at the workplace. Of the people who faced sexual harassment at the workplace, 55.2 percent decided not to file a complaint. They felt helpless and reported that that such sexual pressure is unwelcome, it is deliberate, it is about male privilege and dominance. According to India's constitution, sexual harassment infringes the fundamental right of a woman to gender equality under Article 14 of the Constitution of India and her right to life and live with dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution.27 The Supreme Court has taken a broad interpretation of what constitute “the workplace” too by not limiting the workplace to a certain geographical area.

Public debates on sexual harassment while travelling from home to workplace has also brought to fore the major issue of safe transport for women. Without safe travel facility, it becomes very difficult to take employment that involves long distance travel.

Wage Gap

It is often considered that if women move into male-dominated occupations in larger numbers, the wage gap will close. However, there appears to be a gender-related wage gap in virtually every occupational category. Gender segregation directly influences the work behaviour in the form of wage differentials.

Glass Ceiling, Sticky Floor, Glass Walls, Leaking Pipeline

Women are often in situations where their advancement and promotion within the hierarchy of an organization in terms of their qualification and ability is stopped at a lower level because of some form of discrimination. Glass Ceiling is believed to be an unofficial, invisible barrier that prevents women and minorities from advancing in businesses. When working women are at the lower level, due to misogyny in the ecosystem, women themselves do not aspire for higher-level positions. Patriarchal bias in the corporate milieu hampers their career progression as compared to their male counterparts; this is referred to as the “sticky floor”. ILO states, “When women are able to attain higher-level management positions, they often find themselves in management support functions that do not lead to the highest-level management jobs. This phenomenon is also known as the “glass walls”. Even when women do enter the labour force, their participation rates drop significantly with age, which is the time when women are experienced enough to assume higher positions and more responsibilities at work. This attrition or exit of qualified women at higher career levels from companies and organizations is often referred to as the “leaking pipeline”. It leads also to a shortage of women in senior management posts to serve as role models.”

Q3. Are there any sectoral/ profession skews that become evident while looking at the workforce participation of women?

The subordination in recent times is most clearly seen at the overall level in two dimensions: lateral subordination, where female dominated sectors and occupations have lower status and are given lower values than male-dominated sectors and occupations, and subordination in the vertical dimension, where women as a group are to be found at a lower level in the hierarchies than men6. It has been seen that countries with high female employment rates have high segregation rates. As more women enter the labour markets they are recruited into sectors and work tasks that already are defined as ‘female jobs’, and they are doing service jobs earlier performed in the household and now transformed into market work. A consequence of gender segregation is uneven economic conditions. Empirical studies estimate that gender segregation explains a large proportion of the gender wage gap.

When building families, men are usually learning their trade or occupation, and establishing their position in the labour market. Women still have responsibility for care, both at home and in the market. She therefore plans a larger part of her life around combination of gainful employment and her responsibilities in the home and for the family. She does these using different strategies for both caring for the family and maintaining her employment.

Q4. What is vulnerable employment and what are the reasons for women to be bearing the burden of the phenomenon?

Women are over-represented in the informal sector worldwide. This basic fact has several dimensions. Firstly, the informal sector is the primary source of employment for women in most developing countries. The majority of economically active women in the developing countries are engaged in the informal sector. In India, the informal sector accounts for nine out of every ten women working outside agriculture. The proportion of women workers in the informal sector exceeds that of men in most countries. Thirdly, women’s share of the total informal workforce outside of agriculture is higher than men’s share in 9 out of 21 developing countries for which data are available.

However, women opt to continue in the informal sector not necessarily because of a lack of choice, but because of the flexibility of working arrangements and a wider range of opportunities.

• the majority of women in the informal sector are own account traders, vendors and producers or casual and subcontract workers; relatively few are employers who hire paid workers.
• men and women tend to be involved in different activities or types of employment even within the same trades: in many countries, for example, male traders tend to have larger scale operations and to deal in non-food items while female traders tend to have smaller scale operations and to deal in food items.
• average incomes of both men and women are lower in the informal sector than in the formal sector.
• the gender gap in income/wages appears higher in the informal sector than in the formal sector and exists even when women are not wage workers as markets are socially constructed to favour men.
• the relatively large gender gap in income/wages in the informal sector is largely due to two interrelated factors: informal incomes worldwide tend to decline as one moves across the following types of employment: employer – self-employed – casual wage worker – sub-contract worker women worldwide are under-represented in high income activities and over-represented in low income activities (notably, subcontract work)

Here it is important to note the links between being a woman, working in the informal sector, and contributing to growth. Even though the average earnings of women in the informal sector are low, the female informal workforce contributes significantly to gross domestic product (GDP). Women informal traders contribute a significant share (20-65%) of GDP in the trading sector. The contribution of women in the informal sector to total GDP is greater than their share of employment in the informal sector. This is because women are more likely than men to engage in multiple activities in the informal sector. For many years certain assumptions existed like women either could not do a job or that they did not need to do it. The consequence of this kind of thinking has been that gender segregation has affected women’s and men’s concentration in different occupations, industries and levels in workplace hierarchies. This has led to gender discrimination and has perpetuated gender inequality within the world of work.

Issues of rural development and women's empowerment receive critical attention in various debates due to efforts of Mahila Kisan Adhikar Manch (MAKAM). Trends and patterns of agricultural development in the post liberalisation period has intensified marginalisation of women farmers and agricultural labourers. Transformations in rural India have ushered in water and fodder scarcity that have undoubtedly increased the drudgery of rural women’s life.

Increasingly, they also face greater livelihood insecurity on account of market forces and liberalization policies, and greater restrictions on access to resources such as land, water, forests and village commons. With livelihood insecurity, there is food insecurity as well. Given the complementarities of patriarchy, caste and class, women of the poorest classes of marginalized Dalit and tribal communities bear much of the brunt of these insecurities, even as they also face severe restrictions on mobility and myriad forms of violence. With the greater participation of civil society organizations, engaged in gender transformative approaches and participatory development, some favourable outcomes have been derived, but it is hardly sufficient to address the scale and dimensions of the problem. Challenging issues of livelihood and food insecurity, efficacy of micro-credit and other kinds of interventions demand urgent attention.

Q5. A study by IIM-A released earlier this year suggests that the income gap increases as the women rise in their careers in India. How does one explain this trend?

A number of studies show, that women are more often overqualified for their job than men. Other studies show that women have less influence over their work organisation and content than men. Women also generally have a greater degree of monotonous, repetitive motion in their work. Further, studies show that occupations where women predominate have a lower status than male dominated occupations, even if the occupations require equivalent education and training. In workplaces with as many women as men, in apparently the same occupation, the women often perform different tasks, which most of the time are classified differently in status and pay. The work women almost always perform is valued lower.

The structures in a work organisation are often seen as gender-neutral, as independent of whether the organisation’s members are women or men. However, it has to be considered as to how gender affects the processes and structures of the organisations. Organisational structures must be understood and analysed as gendered systems. Different forms of organisation have different gender-political effects. The so-called gender power systems, i.e. underlying conceptions, standards and practices in modern companies, are constituent conditions ‘invisible’.

A comparison between hierarchy and network organisations shows that a hierarchical organisation limits people’s exposure to new challenges. On the other hand, a network organisation offers considerable, in principle limitless, challenges. Hierarchical organisations are likely to make women invisible as bearers of knowledge, and isolate them, often at the bottom of the hierarchy. A hierarchical organisation promotes a gender order where men are given pride of place over women. Network organisations become more female-friendly, largely by virtue of their flexibility. Network organisations are more amenable to change, make women visible as working individuals and allow all employees to take on greater challenges. Network organisations are also more female-friendly because they better reflect women’s attitude to work, women’s values and their general way of being.

Different forms of organisation have different gender-political effects. However, gender-based power structures are not static since society, norms and values change over a period of time. Structures arise out of social relations and are therefore the result of actions by individuals and groups. Gender is thus viewed as something that is being constructed, by ourselves and by others in constant interaction, within the framework of the structures that surround us.

The following verses (continuously getting improvised in the training sessions on gender sensitization) succinctly bring out double standards at the workplace:

Gender at work

The family picture is on HIS desk.

Ah, a solid, responsible family man.

The family picture is on HER desk.

Umm, her family will come before her career.

HIS desk is cluttered.

He's obviously a hard worker and a busy man.

HER desk is cluttered.

She's obviously a disorganized scatterbrain.

HE is talking with his co-workers.

He must be discussing the latest deal.

SHE is talking with her co-workers.

She must be gossiping.

HE's not at his desk.

He must be at a meeting.

SHE's not at her desk.

She must be in the ladies' room.

HE's having lunch with the boss.

He's on his way up.

SHE's having lunch with the boss.

They must be having an affair.

The boss criticized HIM.

He'll improve his performance.

The boss criticized HER.

She'll be very upset.

HE got an unfair deal.

Did he get angry?

SHE got an unfair deal.

Did she cry?

HE's getting married.

He'll get more settled.

SHE's getting married.

She'll get pregnant and leave.

HE's having a baby.

He'll need a raise.

SHE's having a baby.

She'll cost the company money in maternity benefits.

HE's going on a business trip.

It's good for his career.

SHE's going on a business trip.

What does her husband say?

HE's leaving for a better job.

He knows how to recognize a good opportunity.

SHE's leaving for a better job.

Women are not dependable

Q6. What do you see the role of various agencies- government and non-government as well as corporate sector in ensuring a shrinking gender gap amongst the workforce in India?

As a consequence of the overall growth of the economy, some of the marginalized groups in a society that is already characterized by a high level of inequality in opportunities and segregation along lines of, gender, caste, and social status, are widely reckoned to not have benefited from overall growth. To enable women to expand their livelihood opportunities, a vast range of government programs need to be initiated and large amounts of resources must be channeled to poor areas. An increasingly popular approach to do so relies on the concept of Community Driven Development (CDD) whereby resources are made available to encourage formation of savings groups at the local level and, once they have attained a certain degree of maturity, the channeling to such groups of funds (either as a credit or a grant) which they can use for small projects aimed to improve their livelihood. Transformative Financing for Gender Equality and Gender Responsive Budgeting are imperative for bridging the gender gaps in the areas of health, education, skill development, employment, safety, decision making and gender mainstreaming in all flagship programmes of the state & non-state ventures.