WoWo ( Women Workforce ) — LFPR Declining in India — Why?
In the last few years, we have been listening the buzz word in India- women empowerment, we all feel that female labor force participation rate is increasing. But its a myth as the statistics suggest that it is decreasing since 2011–12, the LFPR for females fell by 8 percentage points to 23.3 per cent in 2017–18. So only a quarter of the females in the country were either working or seeking jobs.
Its important to understand what is this LFPR? LFPR is the section of working population in the age group of 16–64 in the economy currently employed or seeking employment. People who are still undergoing studies, housewives and persons above the age of 64 are not factored in the labour force.
Female labor force participation is a key to promoting inclusive growth and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 5 (“Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”).
Why we need increase in Female LFPR :-
The changing nature of women’s participation in the labor force has been a critical dimension of the development process since the Industrial Revolution and increasing numbers of women in the labor market have played an important role in driving the demographic dividend and pushing economic growth.Ultimately, women’s employment is driven by a range of multifaceted factors, including education, social norms, and the nature of economic growth and job creation.
1. Impact on Economy —
a) Increase in per capita net domestic product if there is an increase of female to male ratio of total workers
b) Boost in GDP by raising Female LFPR by 27%
2. Social Benefits -
Earning women contributes with awareness, knowledge into all facets of society. An example — Report by Harvard suggests that women who are earning , have their sisters marriage happening late and which is a positive sign from health perspective.
Reasons for low female LFPR :-
1. Share of women/men involved in domestic duties — 49.9%,61.1% women to 0.3%,0.5% men are involved in domestic duties in rural, urban India respectively. The reason for this is because maximum women thinks that household or domestic duties is their primary responsibility and if they don’t do it, no-one else will do that. Its very difficult to do a job along with performing domestic duty.
2. Mobility/Freedom to Travel -
a) Men travel long distance more as compare to women
b) Women who cant go alone to visit
c) Women are not allowed to travel without permission of family, relatives
With travel options get restricted, their job options get restricted too.
3. Pay/Wage Gap
Research shows that women are paid 34% less than men for performing the same job with same qualifications. If there is no gender discrimination, then women would have got higher salary as compare to men. Here are few reasons of gender wage discrimination —
- Maternity leave
- Women cannot work late night due to safety reason/travel reasons or due to other responsibilities
Due to the pay gap, female workforce gets demotivated to join workforce.
4. Family or Society perception — Women are usually (in small towns and cities and traditional families) expected to choose such work which are very reputable (like doctor ) or has fixed working hours (like teacher) so they can come back home on time and take care of kids and home.
Reasons for consistent fall in female LFPR in India :-
- Household income is increasing
Female participation rates increase when per capita income is less than 100 and it decreases when per capita income is higher than 250.
— When house income is less, females contribute to increase the income and as income increase, families want female to stay at home.
— Rural India income comes out of work which involves lot of physical work and as age increases, they are not able to put the same amount of effort for the physical work.
— Most families are uncomfortable that female in their house are working.
2. Less Job Opportunities for women
— Less lucrative jobs in industries like Construction
— Rural women jobs in Agriculture has been replaced by Machineries
3. Household work is not considered as work in Indian economy and it doesn't add anything to GDP
Probable Solutions :-
1. Female education and LFPR has a U shaped relationship — So it means that education improvement does not increase female LFPR proportionally. Hence, it is important for us to work towards perception towards women in society. For this we need to work towards initiatives like Beti Bachao and Beti Badhao consistently and not one time.
2. Transport Infrastructure needs to become better — this can help women to have infrastructure which wont restrict job opportunities for women.
The IHDS surveys found that the construction of either a kutcha or a pucca road increased the odds of women’s participation in non-farm work by 1.5 and 1.4 times, respectively.
3. Women’s education needs to expand beyond middle school (junior secondary) for their participation in the labor force to increase, especially if they are to work in better quality jobs. At higher levels of education, potential earnings act as a pull factor, helping overcome economic and social constraints.
4. Women spend a lot of time in job search — Need to have better technological solutions which can help female to search job quickly and as per their fitment — solutions like linkedin, naukri.com should be targeting to help women.
5. Jobs as per their skills, education — We can create jobs in rural areas by giving more importance to industries like manufacturing, which can help educated women to contribute as per their qualification. Participation is only part of the picture: The quality of employment also matters, which can motivate the women workforce.
6. Government & Organisation Policies — Policies should consider both supply-and demand-side dimensions, including better quality education and training programs and access to childcare, as well as other supportive institutions and legal measures to ease the burden of domestic duties, enhance women’s safety, and encourage private sector development in industries and regions that can increase job opportunities for women.
6. Create Safe & Supportive Environment for women in organisation & society— This can motivate the female workforce.
Above are just few solutions which i can suggest, however i will look forward to hear solutions from you all in the comments section.