1.4 - Society Notes 06

Elaborate Notes

Women in Industry and Service Sector

The participation of women in India’s formal industrial and service sectors remains significantly low, a fact corroborated by multiple national and international reports. This underrepresentation is not merely a statistic but a reflection of deep-seated structural and societal barriers.

• Statistical Overview:

  • Consulate General of Sweden in India: A study highlighted that women’s representation in the Indian manufacturing sector increased from 3% to a mere 12% over a specific period, indicating a slow pace of change.
  • General Electric and Avatar Research: Their joint study corroborates this figure, placing women’s participation in Indian industries at approximately 12%.
  • International Labour Organization (ILO): The ILO provides a broader perspective, stating that the combined participation of women in India’s services and industries is less than 20%, pointing towards a systemic issue of exclusion from the formal economy.
  • Global Gender Gap Report (2022) by World Economic Forum: This report delves into leadership roles, revealing a stark disparity. Women occupy only 14.6% of senior positions and 8.9% of managerial roles. Their presence is slightly better in professional and technical jobs at 29.2%, suggesting that while women are entering skilled professions, their progression to leadership is severely constrained, a phenomenon often described as the ‘leaky pipeline’.
  • Deloitte Study: Reinforcing the leadership gap, this study found that only 4.7% of CEOs in India are women, illustrating the persistence of the ‘glass ceiling’.

• Causal Factors for Low Participation:

  • Skill and Technical Gap: A historical deficit in access to technical education and vocational training for women has resulted in a skills gap, making them less competitive for industrial and technology-driven roles.
  • Disincentives to Work: Women face a range of demotivating factors:
    • Wage Gap: The persistent disparity in pay for work of equal value discourages participation.
    • Dual Burden: Coined by sociologist Arlie Hochschild in her work “The Second Shift” (1989), this refers to the expectation that women perform a full day of paid work followed by a full ‘shift’ of unpaid domestic labor, leading to extreme time poverty and burnout.
    • Social Ridicule and Harassment: Women who transgress traditional boundaries by working, especially in non-traditional sectors or at odd hours, often face societal censure and are vulnerable to sexual harassment at the workplace and during commute, as highlighted by the Vishakha Guidelines (1997) and the subsequent Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.
  • Lack of Gender-Friendly Infrastructure: The physical and social infrastructure of workplaces is often designed with a male workforce in mind. The absence of critical facilities like crèches, separate and functional toilets, safe transportation, and security measures like CCTV cameras acts as a significant deterrent.
  • Stereotypes and Domestic Confinement: Deep-rooted patriarchal stereotypes, as described by scholars like Sylvia Walby in “Theorizing Patriarchy” (1990), confine women to the ‘private’ or domestic sphere, assigning them expressive and caregiving roles, while men are expected to occupy the ‘public’ or economic sphere.
  • Absence of Role Models: The scarcity of women in leadership and technical fields leads to a lack of visible role models for younger generations, which in turn limits their aspirations and awareness of available opportunities.
  • Career Breaks due to Reproductive Responsibilities: Women often have to take career breaks for childbirth and child-rearing. As former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi articulated, women’s ‘biological clock’ (prime childbearing years) and ‘career clock’ (crucial years for career advancement) often overlap, forcing them to make difficult choices that men typically do not face.
  • Unintended Consequences of Protective Legislation: The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017, while progressive in its intent, has inadvertently reduced the desirability of hiring women in the formal sector for some employers who view the cost of 26 weeks of paid leave as a financial burden.
  • Pervasive Social Norms: The Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) by UNDP surveyed 75 countries and found that 40% of people believe men make better business executives than women. This deep-seated bias influences hiring and promotion decisions, creating an invisible barrier for women.
  • Stigmatization and Marital Responsibilities: Women in demanding corporate roles are sometimes stigmatized for “neglecting” their families. Furthermore, post-marriage, women are often expected to relocate or prioritize their husband’s career and domestic responsibilities, leading to career interruptions.

Women in Informal Sector

The informal sector in India is characterized by the ‘feminization’ of labor, where a disproportionately high number of women are engaged in low-paying, insecure, and unregulated work.

• Statistical Evidence:

  • International Labour Organization (ILO): Reports from the ILO consistently show that in India, the number of women in informal and part-time jobs far exceeds that of men.
  • e-Shram Portal: Data from this government portal for unorganized workers reveals that over 53% of the registered workers are women. This provides concrete evidence for the ‘Feminization of the informal sector’, a term used to describe the increasing proportion of women in precarious employment.

• The Vicious Cycle of Patriarchy and Informalization: The concentration of women in the informal sector can be understood as a direct outcome of patriarchal structures.

  1. Patriarchy: Creates a system of male dominance and female subordination.
  2. Deprivation: This system leads to the deprivation of women’s access to key resources like quality education, skill development, and capital.
  3. Limited Formal Opportunities: Consequently, women are unable to compete for formal jobs, pushing them towards the easily accessible but exploitative informal sector.
  4. Exploitation: In the informal sector, they are subjected to minimal wages, lack of social security (pension, health insurance), absence of legal protection, and unsafe working conditions, perpetuating their economic vulnerability.

• The Gig Economy and Women’s Empowerment: The gig economy, characterized by short-term, flexible jobs mediated by digital platforms, presents a dual-edged sword for women’s empowerment.

  • Positive Impacts:
    • Re-entry into Workforce: It offers flexible work arrangements, providing an opportunity for women who have taken career breaks due to marriage or childbirth to re-enter the labor market.
    • Autonomy and Identity: It can foster a sense of self-identity, financial independence, and decision-making autonomy, thereby improving their status within the household and society.
  • Challenges and Concerns:
    • Wage Gap: A Teamlease report indicates an 8-10% wage gap even within the gig economy, showing that gender-based pay discrimination persists in this new model of work.
    • Digital Divide: Access to the gig economy is contingent on digital literacy and access to digital infrastructure. With only 21% of Indian women using mobile internet (as per GSMA reports), a significant portion is excluded.
    • Lack of Social Security: Gig workers are typically classified as independent contractors, not employees, and are thus denied benefits like maternity leave, sick leave, health insurance, and retirement plans. This makes them highly vulnerable.
    • Occupational Segregation: Women in the gig economy are often ghettoized into ‘pink-collar’ jobs such as beauty services, wellness, cleaning, and care work, which are often extensions of their traditional domestic roles and tend to be undervalued and lower-paying.
    • Safety and Security: Platform-based work can expose women to safety risks, including harassment from clients, especially in roles that require entering private homes.
    • Economic Vulnerability: The Azim Premji University’s ‘State of Working India’ report highlighted the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, where 47% of women workers lost their jobs permanently compared to only 7% of men.
    • Urban-Centric and Asset-Dependent: The gig economy is largely an urban phenomenon. Moreover, many platforms (e.g., ride-hailing) require workers to own assets like a vehicle, which is a significant barrier for women who have lower rates of asset ownership.
    • Psychological Pressure: The constant pressure of performance ratings and the “always-on” nature of gig work can disrupt work-life balance and be psychologically damaging, leading to anxiety and isolation due to the lack of a traditional workplace community.
  • Way Forward: The gig economy’s potential can be harnessed by creating a ‘secure gig economy’. The initiative by the Rajasthan Government to pass a law ensuring social security for gig workers is a pioneering step in this direction, offering a model for other states and the central government.

Issues Faced by Women in the Labour Market

• Low Female Labour Force Participation (FLFP):

  • India’s FLFP is among the lowest in the world. The Global Gender Gap Report 2023 ranked India 127th out of 146 countries.
  • The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2022-23 shows the FLFP at 37%, which, despite being an improvement over previous years, is still significantly low.

• Reasons for Low FLFP:

  • Income Effect: Paradoxically, as household income increases, some families withdraw their female members from the workforce. This is often seen as a status symbol, a phenomenon sociologist M.N. Srinivas linked to the process of ‘Sanskritization’, where lower castes emulate the customs of upper castes, including the seclusion of women.
  • Caste Rigidities: In many upper-caste communities, notions of purity and pollution restrict women’s mobility and participation in outside work to maintain family honor and status.
  • Wage Gap & Unpaid Work: The persistent wage gap and the disproportionate burden of unpaid domestic and care work make formal employment a less attractive or feasible option for many women.

Maternity Benefit Act

The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 was enacted to protect women’s employment during maternity and provide for childcare, aiming to arrest the declining FLFP due to the motherhood penalty.

• Key Provisions:
  • Paid Leave: Increased paid maternity leave from 12 weeks to 26 weeks for the first two children.
  • Subsequent Children: For more than two children, the leave remains 12 weeks.
  • Adoptive/Commissioning Mothers: A 12-week paid leave for women adopting a child below three months of age and for commissioning mothers (mothers using a surrogate).
  • Timing of Leave: A woman can avail the leave up to 8 weeks before her due date.
  • Crèche Facility: It is mandatory for every establishment with 50 or more employees to have a crèche facility.
  • Crèche Visits: Women are permitted to visit the crèche 4 times during the day.
  • Work From Home: Enables employers to permit women to work from home after the 26-week leave period, if the nature of work allows.
  • Awareness: Employers must inform women workers in writing about the benefits available under the Act.

Analysis of the Act:

Pros	Cons
Provides crucial income security to approximately 1.8 million women in the formal sector.	Has reportedly led to a decline in the desirability of hiring women, as employers, especially in smaller firms, perceive the cost as prohibitive.
Ensures better early childhood care and promotes breastfeeding, which has long-term health benefits.	The Act’s provisions are limited to the formal sector, excluding the vast majority of women working in the informal sector.
Helps prevent women from dropping out of the workforce post-childbirth, preserving valuable human capital.	Reinforces the gender stereotype that childcare is solely a woman’s responsibility by not including provisions for paternity leave.
	The long absence of 26 weeks can pose challenges for women in reintegrating into the workplace, potentially affecting their career progression.
	It places the entire financial burden on the employer, reducing the cost-competitiveness of companies, particularly MSMEs.
	May inadvertently push more women into informal employment, where such benefits are non-existent.

• Way Forward:
  • Adopting International Models:
    • Singapore: Provides 16 weeks of paid leave, with the cost shared between the government and the employer, reducing the burden on individual companies.
    • Sweden: Offers a generous 480 days of paid parental leave to be shared between both parents, with 90 days reserved exclusively for each, thereby promoting shared parenting.
  • Introducing Paternity Leave: A national policy on paternity leave is crucial to shift the mindset and redistribute childcare responsibilities.
  • Incentivizing Employers: The government could provide financial incentives or tax breaks to companies that effectively implement maternity benefits and retain female employees post-maternity.
  • Extending to Informal Sector: Creating a social security fund or using a hybrid model to extend maternity benefits to women in the informal sector is essential for inclusive growth.

Wage Gap

The gender wage gap refers to the difference in earnings between men and women, often expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings. It signifies a lack of equal pay for work of equal value.

• Data and Causes:
  • ‘Monster’ Salary Index: An online report that highlighted a significant gender pay gap of 20% in India.
  • Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS): Data suggests that the wage gap widened by 7% during the COVID-19 pandemic, as women were disproportionately affected by job losses and reduced working hours.
  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): Identifies two primary reasons for the wage gap:
    1. Low Bargaining Power: Women often have weaker bargaining power due to social conditioning, concentration in unorganized sectors, and a greater need for flexible work arrangements.
    2. Undervaluation of Care Work: Sectors and roles predominantly occupied by women (e.g., teaching, nursing, care work) are systematically undervalued and underpaid compared to male-dominated sectors.
  • International Labour Organization (ILO): Attributes the wage gap to:
    1. Patriarchy: Societal norms that devalue women’s work.
    2. Access Gaps: Limited access to education, skills, and training confines women to lower-paying jobs.
    3. Motherhood Penalty: Women with children often earn less than their male counterparts and childless female colleagues due to career interruptions and biases.
    4. Feminized Occupations: The prevalence and undervaluation of jobs stereotypically considered “women’s work.”

Unpaid Work

Unpaid work refers to all non-remunerated activities, primarily household chores (cooking, cleaning) and care work (caring for children, the elderly, and the sick), performed within a household.

• Scale and Significance:

  • Global Burden: Globally, women perform 75% of all unpaid care work.
  • Indian Context (Time Use Survey): In India, 92% of women aged 15-59 are engaged in unpaid domestic work, compared to a much smaller fraction of men.
  • Economic Value (ILO): The ILO estimates that if unpaid work done by women were monetized, it would amount to $11 trillion, or 9% of the global GDP. It is the ‘Hidden Engine’ that sustains economies, societies, and the formal workforce.
  • Education is No Equalizer (ILO): The ILO has noted that irrespective of their educational attainment or employment status, the concentration of women in unpaid work remains largely unaffected, highlighting the deep entrenchment of gender norms.
  • State-level Recognition: While not monetized at the national level, some state governments have initiated financial assistance for homemakers, such as Goa’s Griha Aadhar Scheme and Assam’s Orunodoi Scheme.

• Causes of Feminization of Unpaid Work:

  • Gender Stereotyping: The belief that women are naturally better suited for ‘expressive’ or nurturing roles (a concept from functionalist sociologist Talcott Parsons).
  • Gender-specific Socialization: From a young age, girls are socialized into domestic roles while boys are encouraged to focus on outdoor and career-oriented activities.
  • Culture of Toxic Masculinity: Prevailing masculine norms often discourage men from participating in household work, which is seen as “unmanly.”
  • Glorification of Homemaking: Society often glorifies the role of a woman as a homemaker, portraying it as an ideal of womanhood, which can limit their aspirations for outside employment.

• Implications of Unpaid Work:

  • High Opportunity Cost: The time and energy spent on unpaid work come at the cost of education, skill development, paid employment, leisure, and political participation.
  • Barrier to FLFP: It is a primary structural barrier preventing women from entering, remaining in, and progressing in the labor force.
  • Occupational Segregation: It forces many women to choose part-time jobs or employment below their skill levels that offer flexibility to manage domestic duties.
  • Deterioration in Quality of Life: The ‘dual burden’ leads to time poverty, sleep deprivation, anxiety, and social isolation.
  • Increased Vulnerability: Economic dependence resulting from unpaid work increases women’s vulnerability to shocks like illness, death of a spouse, or economic downturns.

• Debate on Monetizing Unpaid Work:

  • Challenges:
    1. Measurement Difficulty: It is difficult to accurately capture and quantify the multitasking nature of household work.
    2. Implementation Issues: Practical questions arise, such as who would pay for this work—the state or the husband?
    3. Commodification of Care: Assigning a monetary value could reduce the emotional and sentimental value of care, turning love and affection into a transaction.
    4. Reinforcing Stereotypes: It might further entrench the idea that domestic work is a woman’s job, simply one that is now paid.
  • Positives:
    1. Visibility and Recognition: It makes the immense economic contribution of women visible in national accounting (e.g., GDP).
    2. Empowerment: It could improve women’s status and bargaining power within the household.
    3. Informed Policymaking: Quantifying unpaid work can lead to better policies. For instance, an Oxfam report calculated that the Jal Jeevan Mission could save a woman 22 minutes a day on water collection (unpaid work), potentially freeing up 60 minutes for paid work.

• Way Forward: The ‘3 R’s’ Approach Proposed by feminist economists like Diane Elson, this framework provides a comprehensive solution:

  1. Recognize: Acknowledge and measure unpaid care and domestic work through official statistics like Time Use Surveys.
  2. Reduce: Decrease the drudgery and time spent on unpaid work by investing in public infrastructure (piped water via Jal Jeevan Mission, clean cooking fuel via Ujjwala Yojana) and technology.
  3. Redistribute: Promote the equitable distribution of care responsibilities between men and women (through paternity leave) and between the family and the state (through affordable, quality childcare and elder care facilities).

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Prelims Pointers

• Global Gender Gap Report: Published annually by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
• Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI): Published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
• e-Shram Portal: A national database for unorganized workers launched by the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
• Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS): Conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
• Female Labour Force Participation (FLFP) Rate in India: 37% (as per PLFS 2022-23).
• Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017:
  1. Paid maternity leave: 26 weeks for the first two children.
  2. Adoptive/Commissioning mothers: 12 weeks of leave.
  3. Crèche Facility: Mandatory for establishments with 50 or more employees.
  4. The Act is applicable to the formal/organized sector.
• Indian State Schemes for Homemakers:
  • Griha Aadhar Scheme: Goa
  • Orunodoi Scheme: Assam
• ‘The Second Shift’: A term coined by sociologist Arlie Hochschild to describe the dual burden of paid and unpaid work faced by women.
• ‘3 R’s’ Approach for Unpaid Work: Recognize, Reduce, and Redistribute.
• Vishakha Guidelines (1997): Supreme Court guidelines for dealing with sexual harassment at the workplace, which formed the basis for the 2013 Act.

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Mains Insights

GS Paper I (Indian Society)

• Patriarchy and Economic Participation: The low participation of women in the formal economy is a direct manifestation of entrenched patriarchal norms. Concepts like ‘purity and pollution’, the gendered division of labor (private vs. public sphere), and the valuation of family honor over women’s autonomy continue to shape economic outcomes. The ‘income effect’ leading to the withdrawal of women from work is a modern reflection of the old ‘Sanskritic’ model of social status.
• Impact of Globalization on Women: The gig economy represents a new phase of globalization’s impact. While it offers flexibility, it also creates a new form of precarious labor (the ‘precariat’, a term by Guy Standing) and replicates old inequalities like the wage gap and occupational segregation in a new, digitally-mediated format. This creates a complex picture of simultaneous empowerment and exploitation.
• Changing Family Structures: The debate around unpaid work and the demand for paternity leave reflects a challenge to the traditional, patriarchal family structure. Recognizing unpaid work and redistributing it can fundamentally alter power dynamics within the family and redefine gender roles for future generations.

GS Paper II (Social Justice & Governance)

• Effectiveness of Protective Legislation: The Maternity Benefit Act serves as a classic case study of a well-intentioned law with mixed outcomes. While it provides crucial support, its design (placing the onus on employers, excluding the informal sector) creates unintended negative consequences. This highlights the need for a more holistic policy design that balances employee welfare with employer viability, possibly through state-supported models like those in Singapore or Sweden.
• Social Security for New Forms of Labor: The rise of the informal and gig economy necessitates a paradigm shift in social security. The traditional employer-employee model is inadequate. Initiatives like Rajasthan’s proposed law for gig workers are crucial policy innovations. The challenge for governance is to create a universal social security framework that is portable and covers all workers, regardless of their employment status.
• From Welfare to Empowerment: The analysis of unpaid work shows a policy evolution from a simple welfare approach (e.g., providing financial aid to homemakers) to an empowerment-based approach (the ‘3 R’s’). The latter is more sustainable as it addresses the root causes of inequality by aiming to reduce and redistribute the burden of work, thereby enabling women’s full participation in all spheres of life.

GS Paper III (Indian Economy)

• Gender Gap as an Economic Drag: Low FLFP, the wage gap, and the immense burden of unmonetized unpaid work represent a significant underutilization of human capital. As per various economic studies (e.g., by McKinsey, IMF), closing the gender gap in labor force participation could add trillions of dollars to India’s GDP. Gender inequality is not just a social issue; it is a critical economic bottleneck.
• Cost-Benefit Analysis of Social Policies: The Maternity Benefit Act illustrates the economic tension between social welfare and business competitiveness, especially for MSMEs. This calls for policy solutions that socialize the cost of such benefits (e.g., through a central fund or tax incentives) rather than placing it on individual employers, thereby creating a level playing field and encouraging female employment.
• Investing in Care Economy: The discussion on unpaid work highlights the economic importance of the ‘care economy’. Investing in public services like affordable childcare, elder care, and infrastructure (water, fuel) is not just social spending; it is a critical economic investment that frees up women’s time, boosts FLFP, and creates formal jobs in the care sector.

GS Paper IV (Ethics)

• Ethics of Care vs. Economic Value: The debate on monetizing unpaid work touches upon a core ethical dilemma. While monetization provides recognition and economic value (an issue of justice and fairness), it also risks the commodification of acts traditionally associated with love, affection, and duty. An ethical approach would be to ‘recognize’ the value without necessarily ‘pricing’ the emotion, focusing instead on reducing and redistributing the burden.
• Corporate Responsibility and Gender Justice: The persistence of wage gaps and glass ceilings in the corporate sector raises questions of ethical corporate governance. It is the ethical responsibility of organizations to move beyond mere legal compliance and proactively create an inclusive culture that ensures equal pay for work of equal value, eliminates unconscious bias in promotions, and provides supportive infrastructure for all employees.
• Justice for the Invisible Workforce: The exclusion of informal and gig workers from social security nets is an issue of distributive justice. A society’s ethical commitment is tested by how it treats its most vulnerable members. Ensuring basic rights, fair wages, and a safety net for these ‘invisible’ workers is a moral imperative for a just state.