The gender pay gap, hard truths and actions needed

GS paper 2

Syllabus: welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the society, institutions and laws for the protection and betterment of vulnerable sections etc

 

Directions: Important for mains. This is from an editorial piece and a continuation of a previous report by Oxfam on India discrimination report 2022.

Source: The Hindu

Context:

• India is among the most important countries when it comes to the global economic growth and structural transformation story.
  • But, asymmetries still abound in the country’s labour market.

 

Impact of the pandemic on women:

• Income security: Due to their representation in sectors hard hit by COVID-19
• Family responsibility: Gendered division of family responsibilities.
• Child and elderly care: Many women reverted to full-time care of children and the elderly during the pandemic.
• Global Wage Report 2020–21: Massive downward pressure on wages and disproportionately affected women’s total wages compared to men.

 

Gender gap in India:

• Women earned less: Indian women earned, on an average, 48% less compared to their male counterparts in 1993-94.
• National Sample Survey Office (NSSO): The gap declined to 28% in 2018-19.
• Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2020-21: The pandemic reversed the progress and showed an increase in the gap by 7% between 2018-19 and 2020-21.

 

Gender-based discriminatory practices:

• Lower wages paid to women for work of equal value.
• Undervaluation of women’s work in highly feminized occupations
• Enterprises, and motherhood pay gap-lower wages for mothers compared to non-mothers.

 

Constitution and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) by ILO:

• It provides an international legal framework for realising gender equality and addressing the intersecting forms of discrimination and vulnerabilities among women and girls.

 

Steps taken by India:

• Minimum Wages Act in 1948
• Equal Remuneration Act in 1976.
• Code on Wages.
• Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)
• Maternity Benefit Act of 1961
• Skill India Mission
• Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC)

 

Conclusion:

• Achieve UN Sustainable Development Goal 8: Achieving full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men and equal pay for work of equal value” by 2030.
• Closing the gender pay gap: It is key to achieving social justice for working women, as well as economic growth for the nation as a whole.

 

Insta Links:

Labour Codes

MGNREGA

 

Prelims Links:

• Minimum Wages Act in 1948
• Equal Remuneration Act in 1976.
• Code on Wages.
• Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)
• Maternity Benefit Act of 1961
• Skill India Mission
• Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC)
• ILO
• SDGs