An Overview of Changing Pattern of Women Work Participation and Related Problems

 

Miss Mamata Prasad

Assistant professor in Commerce, University B.T & Evening College Cooch Behar.

 

ABSTRACT:

Economic position indicates the status of any section of the population in a society. Any development strategy without recognizing the need for enhancing the role of women cannot be successful. Globalization has introduced vast economic opportunities for women but they are coupled with escalating intimidation. This paper intends to give an overview of the changing pattern of women work participation and the related problem in India. The analytical methodology is followed to give a critical note on the contribution of women in the socio-economic contribution. From the study, it is revealed that women as professional, no hesitation indoctrinate scientific temper and generate consciousness of physical, social technological, economic, cultural and aesthetic environment. New guidelines and new models are desirable to handle the external and internal problems through redefining the role of women.

 

 

 

Economic position indicates the status of any section of the population in a society. Any development strategy without recognizing the need for enhancing the role of women cannot be successful. The productivity of male and female is equally accounted for the economic progress of any country. In India, women were mistreated owing to male supremacy. Social constraints and outlook stall the women's participation in productive activities. Their activities were limited to family and household. Realizing that economic progress cannot be achieved by marginalizing women, who constitute almost half of the total population, the Government has taken numerous measures to empower the women.

Liberalization of the economy and technological and digital advancement are causing   rapid changes in social political, industrial and cultural aspects. There occurs substantial reform of work, employment and industry. The information rebellion is taking place and identity and aspirations alter rapidly. Major structural changes in industries and other professions are taking place. As a result of all these developments and government measures to empower women the rate of women participation in productive activities has been raised noticeably overtime. Against this background, this paper makes an effort to understand the developments in the women workforce participation and related problems in India.

 

 

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

The broad objectives of this paper are -

1. To study the trends of Women participation in Workforce in India and

2. To study the Problems   faced by women in work and to suggest certain remedial measures to solve the problems.

 

METHODOLOGY OF STUDY:

The study is mainly based on secondary data taken from the reputed Published Sources like Various NSS Reports, Labour Statistics Report of the Working Group on Women's Agency and Empowerment, Census Reports and various books and websites on Internet.

 

Trends in women’s employment:

Lewis (1954) opinioned that the shift of women's work from domestic to business is one of the most distinguished features of economic development. Yet, this is one facet in which India's evidence has been considerably dreary. A small female labour force participation rate is certainly the factor that keeps India's overall labour force participation rate low. India ranks 11th from the bottom in female labour force participation the report of ILO's Global Employment Trends 2013)

 

According to 2011 census, 48.46% of total populations are women. The women population has considerably increased but female growth rate and the sex ratios are declining. The overall literacy rate has increased and female literacy rate has also increased. Even though the literacy rate has increased over the years, the male female breach has not lessened.

                                    

Table-1 Work Participation Rate (1971-2011)

Year	Gender	Persons	Male	Female
1971	Total	33.08	52.61	12.11
	Rural	34.03	53.62	13.42
	Urban	29.34	48.82	6.68
1981	Total	36.70	52.62	19.67
	Rural	38.79	53.77	23.06
	Urban	29.99	49.06	8.31
1991	Total	37.50	51.61	22.27
	Rural	40.09	52.58	26.79
	Urban	30.16	48.92	9.19
2001	Total	39.10	51.68	25.63
	Rural	41.75	52.11	30.79
	Urban	32.25	50.60	11.88
2011	Total	39.8	53.3	25.5
	Rural	41.8	53.0	30.0
	Urban	35.3	53.8	15.4

Source: Census Reports

 

The working population constitutes around 40 % (Census 2011) of the total population and female work participation rate is 25.5%. Among the working women, a majority are worked in the informal sector. As per Country report, presented at women’s 4th world conference on 1995 in Beijing, only 4% of all the working women are worked in the organized sector. This means that only around 0.005% of India's population comprises of working women in the organized workforce.

 

A Comparative statistical summary involving Indian women's' participation in the workforce is showed in table -1.  In the table, we can see that the total women   work participation   rate has increased from 14.2% (1971) to 25.5% (2011). The rate of women at work, both in rural and urban areas are also showing a rising tendency over the years. Compare to urban women rural women participation at work is high. The workforce participation of women in urban areas is a meager 14 percent as compared to 54 percent for men. Thirty-one percent of rural women are participated at workforce in rural India and work participation rate t for rural men is 55%.

 

According to the findings of the NSS 68th Round, women's employment has increased in urban areas and declined in rural areas. There were 9.1 million fewer women working in rural areas, whereby the number of urban women working increased by 3.5 million from 2009–10 to 2011–12. The 68th Round data also shows a huge decline of 2.7 million in the case of rural women and an increase of 4.5 million in the case of urban women workers since 2009–10. This indicates that women in rural areas are working less; if they are working, they are more likely to be in subsidiary employment (in comparison to 2009–10).

                      

 

Table-2 Net increase in the number of workers in India (in millions) (all ages)

Period	Urban Female	Rural Female	Urban Male	Rural Male	Total
1983 to 1993–94	5.1	14	17.9	33.8	70.8
1993–94 to 1999–2000	1	1	10.8	10.9	23.7
1999–2000 to 2004–05	6.4	18.3	15	20.3	60
2004–05 to 2009–10	-1.8	-19.5	9.4	13	1.1
2009–10 to 2011–12	4.5	-2.7	9.4	2.7	13.9
1993–94 to 2011–12	10.1	-2.9	44.6	46.9	98.7

Sources:Various NSS Report

 

 

 

The percentage of women employment in the unorganized sector is higher  than the un-organized sector. In the unorganized sector, agriculture is still constituted the main sector that gives more employment for women. In India of the women workers, 82 percent (Table-3) are in the agriculture field. Low level of education and illiteracy is one of the hindering factors to gain productive and salaried employment. There is the prevalence of a wide range of education gap between organized and unorganized women workers. The workers who worked in the agricultural sector have the lowest level of education. In the unorganized sector, they work in as bonded, casual and contract labor in construction work, hand and power loom, bidi and cigar making, stone cutting, dhal and rice milling, pottery, crafts, match working, wooden work etc. Several factors are affecting either optimistically or adversely on the rate of women work participation. Patriarchal tradition, the influence of family, religious conservatism of family, economic status, the level of education, caste and financial status, etc are some factors which affect on women work participation rate. Another impediment to women labour participation is the immobility of labour.

 

 

Table-3   Percentage of female main workers to total female population under broad categories - 1981 to 2011

Census Year	Percentage	To                        Total Female                      Population
	Female Main Workers	Cultivators	Agricultural Labourers	Household Industry	Other Workers
1981	13.99	4.65	6.46	.64	2.24
1991	15.93	5.51	7.05	.55	2.82
2001	14.68	5.11	4.51	.95	4.11
2011	25.5	24	41.1	5.7	29.2

Sources: Census Report

 

The  data  of the NSS 68th Round revealed  for the first time that  the share of the primary sector in total employment, which  has dished below the halfway mark (48.9 percent) while the shares of the secondary and service sectors have witnessed notable hikes compared to the previous rounds (table -4). An additional noteworthy drift in the labour market is the increasing share of regular/salaried workers. Eighteen per cent of total employment contains   regular paid work. The occupational composition of female

 

 

Table- 4 Percentage distribution of workers by industry of work and status in employment in India (all ages) (1999–2000 to 2011–12)

Year		Sectors of economy (%)			Status in employment (%)
		primary	Secondary	Tertiary	Self-employed	Regular salaried	Casual labour
1999-2000	Total Male Female	61.7 54.9 76.3	15.8 17.7 11.7	22.5 27.3 12	52.8 51.5 55.8	14 17.2 7.1	33.2 31.3 37.1
2004-2005	Total Male Female	58.5 50.8 73.9	18.1 20.5 13.3	23.4 28.6 12.8	56.9 54.7 61.4	14.3 17.2 8.3	28.9 28.1 30.3
2009-2010	Total Male Female	53.2 47.1 68.7	16.3 18.1 20.5	15 23.4 28.6	53.3 56.9 54.7	10.1 14.3 17.2	36.6 28.9 28.1
2011-2012	Total Male Female	48.9 43.6 62.8	24.3 25.9 20	26.8 30.5 17.2	52.2 50.7 56.1	17.9 19.8 12.7	29.9 29.4 31.2

Sources: Various NSS Reports

The above table shows that a lion share of women workers is still busy in the primary sector in India, which is characterized by low productivity activities (63 per cent versus 44 per cent of males). Very few percentages of women are in regular employment. 20% of men are in a regular job against 13% of women, and the majority of working urban women are in the service sector as domestic workers. Such trends highlight the very important necessitate to promote the participation of women, on the one hand, and remove the barriers in getting quality and remunerative jobs, on the other.

 

Problems: Even at the international level Women's position in the family has remained unrecognized and it can   indisputably be ascribed to the actuality that women are not in charge of administration and management sectors but are limited to sectors concerned in physical labour. The United Nation's report anticipated that women participation was less in management and administration. The ILO studies reveal that technological advancement pushes women into the too little income generating activities. Owing to lack of skills women willingly accept jobs concerning lower activities. At the same time as women largely accept family taboos to give up employment opportunities, it has to be acknowledged that in India, they have entered into almost in every profession.  Regardless of this partaking, it has not left any satisfactory indentation in the want socio-economic change of women's role in development.

 

Wage Gap: Educational attainment ensures better wages for labourers, both for men and women, across educational categories. In table-5, we see that there is wage discrimination even for regular employees. In all categories women are earning lesser than men.

 

 

 

Table-5 Average Wage/ Salary Earnings (Rs. Per Day) Received by Regular Wage/ Salaried Employees of Age 15-59 Years and Female to Male Wage Ratio by Broad Education Category (Rural-Urban) , 2011-12

Education category	Rural			Urban
	Male	Female	F/M ratio	Male	Female	F/M ratio
Not literate	174.37	89.31	.51	207.65	123.43	.59
Literate and upto middle	202.48	104.27	.51	237.24	132.81	.56
Secondary and higher secondary	319.46	179.98	.56	358.51	306.96	.85
Graduate and above	550.23	377.85	.69	805.52	609.69	.76

 Source: NSS (2011-2012).

 

The sectoral average wage salaried income per day present gender bias against regular women employees, except for some categories (rural utilities and manufacture; and in urban areas manufacture, trade, transport and storage etc. and financial services) (Table-6).

 

 

Table -6 Average Wage/ Salary Earnings (Rs. Per Day) Received by Regular Wage/ Salary Employees of Age 15-59 years by Sector (Industry) of Work and Sex in Rural and Urban Areas and Female Wage to Male Wage Ratio,2011-2012

Sector/industry	Rural			Urban
	Male	Female	F/M ratio	Male	Female	F/M ratio
Agriculture	168.83	101.24	.60	438.14	160.35	.37
Mining and quarrying	648.63	286.17	.44	946.25	467.78	.49
Manufacturing 12	182.64	121.36	.66	258.09	149.03	.58
Manufacturing 3	265.65	131.33	.49	451.64	276.09	.61
Electricity, gas and water	462.71	248.06	.54	524.55	531.96	1.01
Construction	279.15	322.43	1.15	403.03	270.29	.67
Trade	175.15	140.27	.80	254.59	231.33	.90
Transport and storage etc.	235.55	295.87	1.26	443.76	455.01	1.02
services	471.51	248.67	.53	631.96	480.74	.76
Private HHs with employed persons	169.32	64.79	.38	211.82	102.93	.49

Source: NSS (2011-2012).

 

 

There is a salary gap, with women earning lower salaries than men, evidenced even where the job description, skills and experience are equal. There are unequal employment opportunities and marginalization of women in the formal sector. Large numbers of women are relegated to the informal sector.

 

Attitudinal Hazards of Society and Family: Though more and more women try to find paid employment, the conventional outlook towards women and their apparent role in the ancestral ladder has not undergone to a large extent of change. Women persist to be supposed as weak, inferior, second-class citizens. Working women experienced this bias in their workplace also. The improper and insufficient nutritional ingestion along with the heavy workload results in dietary disorders. In addition, this view that they alone are responsible for the family work grows a sense of guilt feeling when they are not able to look after the children or family members due to their office responsibilities, frequently ensuing in emotional disorders. (Dr.Vasaka Sridevikiran, 2015).

 

Sexual Harassment:

Regardless of profession million of women have been sexually harassed at their workplace and get little legal protection. Statistics of National Commission for Women (NCW) showed that there is a significant rise in  sexual harassment at the workplace.  Even when women do have legal provision, the fear of being penalized or beside a promise of much-wanted promotion keeps many women at the inlet. (Dr. K.Vijaya).

 

Year	No. of  Cases
2011 2012 2013 2014	170 167 249 336

 Sources: Factiva

 

Night work:

The number of women working in the night shift is increasing with call centers and export-oriented companies. A large number of women are working during the night shift in Export Processing Zone where they don't have proper protection system or transport facilities.

 

One of the common problems faced by the working class is the increasing fear of losing a job, as a result of this female worker develop many health problems. Informal sector's workers have no job security and majority worker are women in this sector. They are often unskilled workers who receive low wages. Accessibility of work is not regular; and when it is available, women have to work long hours. It is not only  case in the unorganized sector or in small business, but also in the modern sectors like the Information Technology and the automobile sectors where working women are required to work for 12 hours. The local governments overlook this open infringement of the labor laws. The fears of getting work and the dire need to retain a position in the midst of passionate contest reason mental stress, overwrought social relationships, psychological problems and chronic fatigue, these are work-related problems but very  difficult to prove it. Women are more victims of unemployment, underemployment and temporary work than men. The unorganized sector’s workers do not have any social security or health care benefits. As a result, illnesses related to work from which they suffer continue secreted. Furthermore, long-term unemployment causes a serious problem of emotional stability among workers since it leads to poverty and deteriorates self-image and self-esteem.

 

SUGGESTIONS:

Moving away from normal labour force participation rates, policy-makers should be more apprehensive on the subject of whether women are capable of accessing better jobs or starting a business, and take benefit of new labour market opportunities as a country grows (and hence contribute to the development process itself). For this reason, policy interventions should tackle a range of issues, including improving access to and relevance of education and training programmes, promoting childcare and other institutional/legal measures to ease the burden of domestic duties, enhancing women safety and cheering private sector participation t in industries and regions that would increase job opportunities for women in developing countries.

 

To lessen the gap of wage differences of men and women both in rural and urban areas there is a need to achieve the standard which has already set by labour department of the government.

 

To protect women in workplace against any kind of work related hazards provision of various legislation and laws should be strictly implemented and

 

Overall, with the passage of time the societal and family outlook to the role of women should need to be changed and cooperation is necessary for the real growth and development of women work participation.

 

CONCLUSION:

Economic progress increases the opportunities of the working class in bringing social and economic equality between the men and women. On the working women, in a country like India, this economic progress has its own negative impact. The problems are related to inequality, gender demonstration and social impartiality. The governments have to implement suitable policies to efficiently deal with gender discrimination in work contribution and to bring social justice. A nation cannot development by marginalizing the majority of educated women with professional skills. The state should recognize the merit and contribution of women and women should really feel proud of their accomplishments and status in the society.  That will support themselves to fight against the social evils. The whole success of the family and nation depends on the good condition of women both in-house and at the work place.

 

REFERENCES:

1.     A Study on the Gender Wage Gap in India, Study Conducted by: Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST) New Delhi,2012

2.     Employment and Unemployment Situation in India,2011-2012,Nss 68^th Round

3.     Dr.K.Vijaya; The Impact of Globalisation on the Rple of women in the Economi-A Case study of India With Special Focus on Tamilnadu; Social sciencs and Humanities,  Procedings , 4th International Symposium SEUSL

4.     Shayan Javeed and Anupam Manuhaar(2013),  Women and Wage Discrimination in India: A Critical Analysis March 19 – 2013), International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention,Vol.-2,Issue-4,PP 6-12

5.     Sher Verick(2013), A return to stronger employment growth in India? Insights from the 68th NSS Round 2011-12, ILO Asia –Pacific Research Brief Series ,No.2

6.     Dr.Vasaka Sridevikiran, 2015;  Globalization and It’s Impact on women workers in India, International Journal in Management and Social Science, Vol.03 Issue-04

7.     Women Workers in India in the 21st Century – Unemployment and Underemployment (2004) available at:http://www.cpiml.org/liberation/year_2004/febraury/WomenWorkers.ht m(link is external)

 

 

 

 

Received on 09.05.2016       Modified on 08.07.2016

Accepted on 20.09.2016      © A&V Publication all right reserved