Answer Writing Challenge: Model Answer (Part II)

By Sneha Shanti|Updated : December 22nd, 2018

The curious case of low female workforce participation in India. Elucidate.

  • The female workforce participation in India is one of the lowest in the world. According to the economic survey 2017-18, women comprise only 24% of the total Indian workforce. The irony is that as India is growing leaps and bounds on the economic front, the number of females in the workplace is seeing a sharp decline.
  • What is being neglected here is the fact that the female workforce is one of the primary factors related to a country’s growth.
  • FLFP in India dropped from 34.8 percent to 27 percent between 1993 and 2013, a period when India saw soaring and stable economic growth.
  • As per World Bank’s report, India ranks 121st out of a total of 131 countries in the Female Labour Force Participation (FLFP).
  • A report by the UNDP says that more women are now enrolling in the secondary and higher education programme. Women enrolment has risen from 7.5% in 2003-04 to 20% in 2012-13. This brings us to the question as to what is then keeping women out of work?
  • A large part of this can be attributed to the patriarchal narratives prevalent in Indian society.
  • The cultural baggage carried by a working woman is so strong that in most of the conventional Indian families, women quit work after marriage.
  • Another factor could be maternity. Women once joining the workforce are unable to re-join after having a baby. The legislation passed by the Indian government in 2017, that entitles a woman to 26 weeks of paid maternity leave is becoming a roadblock.
  • The absence of basic infrastructure, safe public spaces, hostility at the workplace, wage disparity can be other reasons for the same.
  • Another reason for low female participation is the fact that in India we do not have the provision of vocational training. The curriculum is such that does not arm one with skills required to take up a job.
  • The government can come up with more initiatives aiming at harnessing the potential of women for diverse vocations.
  • Migration can be another hurdle for women to secure a job. Women generally abstain from migrating in search of a job, thus, the need of the hour is to create more and more jobs in Tier I and Tier II cities.
  • In retrospect, embarking on a path towards a supply-side reform to improve work conditions and infrastructure and other constraints will enable women to enter the workforce.
  • The welfare paradigm must not take a backseat and the government must keep funding flagship programmes in the education sector. This might give a kick to the female participation in the human capital.
  • Supplemented by some major structural reforms, India will be able to reap the benefits of its demographic dividend only when each of the segment of the human capital is adequately represented in the workforce.

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