A recent rise in women’s participation in India’s labour force was led by self-employment, possibly an outcome of adversity more than economic growth, according to a study.
Self-employment among women was up 14 percentage points to nearly 65% between the quarter ended June 2018 and the quarter ended December 2022, according to a report titled “State of Working 2023” released by the Bangalore-based Azim Premji University. The report said that if participation rises due to economic growth and rising demand for labour, it has very different implications than if the same happens due to falling household incomes, forcing women into self-employment.
One implication is that while more women moved into self-employment, earnings were only 85% of what they were in the quarter ended June 2019, suggesting the presence of adversity and necessity.
India's female labour force participation rose to just under 33% after the Covid pandemic from 30% before but remains low. The wage gap, while narrower than in the early 2000s, is still wide - as of 2021-22, women earned 76% of what men did.
The current government has now proposed to reserve a third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women.
Jobless Growth
PM Modi, who remains popular among voters ahead of the 2024 general elections, faces criticism for not being able to create enough jobs even though the Indian economy is among the fastest growing major globally. The economy has added around 57 million jobs in five years to June 2022, leading to India's workforce growing to 493 million, but 35 million people remained unemployed, according to government data analysed by the university.
Research also found that growth in India has been less job-intensive than the average across developing countries.
The report said that in the long run, India’s GDP growth has not resulted in employment growth, leading to the conclusion that policies oriented towards achieving faster GDP growth will not necessarily speed up job creation. Unemployment is particularly high among the youth, with the unemployment rate for graduates in the below-25 age group rising as high as 42.3% as of June 2022, the report added.
However, the unemployment rate falls back the older the graduates get, falling to 22.8% for the 25-29 age group and to 9.8% for the 30-34 age group. This suggests that graduates are able to find jobs eventually, but the more pressing questions are, what is the nature of those jobs and do they match the skills and aspirations of the graduates.
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