EDITORIAL ANALYSIS: Recognising the ‘compulsory’ woman worker

Source: The Hindu

• Prelims: Current events of national importance(Different social service Schemes, MGNREGA)
• Mains GS Paper I & II: Social empowerment(women empowerment), development and management of social sectors/services related to Health.

ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS

• The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) reported that the labour participation rate of rural women was 9.92% in March 2022 compared to 24% for men.
• According to CMIE, millions who left the labour market stopped looking for employment “possibly [because they were]too disappointed with their failure to get a job and under the belief that there were no jobs available.
• In countries like the S., Canada and Australia, such workers who are willing to work but give up searching for work for various reasons are called discouraged workers’ and they are included in the unemployed category.
• The CMIE provides valuable inputs for urgently required government intervention in rural India.

INSIGHTS ON THE ISSUE

Context

Scenario of Women’s Workforce Participation:

• In some places, the presence of women is appreciable, for instance, female participation in projects under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is about 50%.
• India also boasts of the highest share of female airline pilots at 15% while the world average is barely 5%.
• Also, not too long ago, half of India’s banking assets were under institutions headed by women.
• Despite this, the participation of women in the workforce in India has still remained low. India’s female LFPR is now among the world’s lowest at around 20%, on par with countries like Saudi Arabia.
• As per a report by the International Labour Organisation(ILO), India ranks 121 out of 131 countries on female LFPR.

Women in Informal Sector:

• According to a 2018 study by the ILO, more than 95% of India’s working women are informal workers who work in labour-intensive, low-paying, highly precarious jobs/conditions, and with no social protection.
• The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 more than doubled the duration of paid maternity leave for women employees to 26 weeks, proposing an option to work from home after this period, on mutual agreement with the employer, and made crèche facilities mandatory for establishments employing 50 or more women.
• However, these benefits are mostly enjoyed by formal sector women workers, constituting less than 5% of the women workforce.
• The lack of affordable and quality childcare services and maternity benefits increase the burden on informal women workers, aggravating gender and class inequalities.

Share of Women in Different Sectors:

• According to United Nations Women (UN Women) estimates, women make up a significant proportion of all healthcare workers and more than 80% of nurses and midwives.
• Women also form a significant proportion of the workforce in the education sector in India, especially in primary education and early childhood care.
• The care service sector, which includes health, education, and other personal care services, is more labour-intensive than sectors such as manufacturing, construction or other service sectors where the employment potential gets affected due to factors such as the introduction of tools, technology and increased mechanization.

The depth of distress:

• The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act(MGNREGA) sites are probably the best places to understand the compulsions of millions of women to work.
  • For example, one particular project in Kalaburagi district focuses on creating more than 200 percolation ponds,which are designed to address the declining levels of groundwater and to help recharge wells. Since Most of these women are unable to dig the land, they do not get the piece rate of ₹309, they get only₹280 to ₹285.
• During the agricultural season, all the women worked on the lands of others, earning around the same as the MGNREGA site. But the mechanization of agricultural operations has drastically decreased workdays to less than three months a year.
• Many women therefore become part time construction workers. They migrate to construction sites for a few months, with their families or with other women from the village. Most of them do not get registered as construction workers making them ineligible for any legal benefits accruing to them from the Construction Workers’ Welfare Board.
• Many women make twig baskets and brooms. They walk from village to village, often 25 km a day,to sell the baskets. It takes two days to make 10 baskets for which they make ₹10 per basket.
• The high prices of essential commodities have led to a huge cut in women’s consumption of vegetables and pulses.
• The deprivation of nourishment that women face due to high prices and low incomes is another dimension of the ‘compulsory’ woman workers life.
• With the deep penetration of capitalist processes in rural India, there is a crisis of livelihood options.

Steps that need to be taken to increase Women Participation in workforce:

• Providing Skill Training: Skill training of women in job roles aligned to the gig, platform and care sectors as well as other emerging sectors such as those covered under the Production-Linked Incentive Scheme needs to be encouraged.
• Online skill training can also be beneficial to women who face constraints in physical mobility due to social norms, domestic responsibilities or concerns over safety.
• More Investments: Greater investment in better health and care facilities would not only improve the well-being of India’s people and hence their economic productivity, but will also lead to more employment opportunities for women.
• Enabling women to acquire both physical assets (through credit facilities, revolving funds, etc.) and employable skills is crucial for them to take up employment opportunities in new and emerging sectors.
• Providing Child Care Services: This initiative will significantly support women in managing their care responsibilities, enabling them to devote sufficient time to paid employment.
• The National Creche Scheme which lays out specific provisions for working women has suffered diminished government funding. Revitalizing the provisions of the scheme and adding a network of public and workplace crèches can be hugely beneficial.

POSHAN Abhiyaan:

• Also called National Nutrition Mission, was launched by the government on the occasion of the International Women’s Day on 8th March, 2018.
• The Abhiyaan targets to reduce Stunting, undernutrition, Anemia (among young children, women and adolescent girls) and reduce low birth weight by 2%, 2%, 3% and 2% per annum respectively.
• It also targets to bring down stunting among children in the age group 0-6 years from 4% to 25% by 2022.

Way Forward

• We need training programmes with well-defined outcomes for women’s digital access and to mentor them to take up employment opportunities in emerging sectors.
• The ILO Report on Care work and Care Jobs for the Future of Decent Work: Key findings in Asia and the Pacific (2018) indicated that increasing investment in the care economy has the potential to generate a total of 69 million jobs in India by 2030.
• Investments to set up child care services through collaborative models in office complexes and with industry associations in industrial corridors are also important.
• Public crèches can be operated at worksite clusters such as near industrial areas, markets, dense low-income residential areas, and labour nakas.
• There should be a process to monitor and evaluate programmes and address systemic and on the ground challenges.
• Implementation of minimum wage in rural India is conceivable only with strong movements of agricultural workers’ unions.
• While rural labourers should also be entitled to a cash transfer, the schedule of rates for women at MGNREGA projects based on impossibly high productivity rates must be lowered and the work sites mademore worker friendly.
• The invisibility of women’s work can be addressed through time use surveys. The village level time use surveys done by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies, for instance, revealed the extent of women’s work.
• The ‘compulsory’ woman worker must be recognised and protected by laws and policies that address her issues.

QUESTION FOR PRACTICE

There is an urgent need for widespread surveys of poor rural women and how they spend their time. Do you agree with the statement? Justify your answer with proper illustrations.

(200 WORDS, 10 MARKS)