Unequal Burden
Context:
- Context: Working women in urban India continue to encounter long-standing biases, according to the most recent Deloitte Women@Work Survey Report for 2023. 42% of them still manage all household duties in addition to their jobs, while 85% of them still manage significant domestic duties.
Women’s Achievements:
- Many women have achieved success in a variety of disciplines. They are now free to pursue their goals because they are no longer bound by gender stereotypes. As an example:
- Social activist Sindhutai Sapkal (Padma Shri 2021) is raising orphaned children.
Environmentalist:
- Encyclopaedia of Forestry by Tulsi Godwa, Padma Shri 2021.
Defense:
- The first Indian woman to fly a solo MiG-21 Bison fighter jet is Avani Chaturvedi.
Sports:
- Mary Kom was the first female boxer to take home an Olympic medal.
- PV Sindhu is the first Indian woman to have won two medals at the Olympics (Bronze in Tokyo in 2020 and Silver in Rio in 2016).
- Indian Women’s Cricket Team: semifinalist at the 2022 Commonwealth Games
- International Organisations: Gita Gopinath is the first female chief economist of the IMF (International Monetary Fund).
The space sector:
- The Indian Missile Woman, Tessy Thomas (Agni-V project).
Education:
- Shanan Dhaka, AIR 1 National Defence Academy Entrance Examination (1st Women’s Batch of NDA), reports that female applicants in the UPSC Civil Services Examination 2021 received the Top 3 All India Ranks.
Women’s working conditions:
- Only 47% of women currently work around the world, compared to 72% of men.
- Only 77% of the legal rights guaranteed to men globally are also given to women. At the current rate, legal gender equality would not be reached for at least 50 years.
- Only 1.5% of men provide full-time unpaid care, compared to 21.7% of women worldwide. Thanks to Covid-19, this disparity has become much more pronounced.
- In the OECD countries, 2.4 billion women of working age do not have equal access to the economy, and there are still 176 countries where there are legal limitations on how much they can contribute to it.
The figures in India are still lower, though:
- In the most current Global Gender Gap (GGG) Index for 2022 published by the World Economic Forum, India was ranked 135th out of 146 countries.
- With a score of 0.490, India is ranked 122nd out of 191 countries in the UNDP’s Gender Inequality Index (GII) for 2021.
- According to World Bank data from 2021, less than one in five Indian women are engaged in the formal, structured sector.
- From 32% in 2005 to 19% in 2021, India’s female workforce participation rate looks to have been continuously falling over the past nearly two decades.
Issues of Interest:
- In politics, industry, and society as a whole, women continue to be underrepresented in positions of leadership.
- From entry-level jobs to high-paying professions, this underrepresentation in the workforce intensifies in senior management positions.
- 91% of women in high positions are unsatisfied with their businesses’ gender diversity and gender support programmes, according to a Deloitte report from 2023.
- Women make up roughly 12–13% of the total membership in the Indian Parliament and state legislatures.
- India ranks 148th out of 193 countries in a study by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and UN Women that looked at the proportion of elected female parliamentarians.
- Lack of Maternity Leave: People have a greater rate of unemployment and more difficulty finding new jobs during the years spent raising children.
- One of the few countries that allows employees to take seven months off is Finland.
- In India, the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 (the Act) increased the duration of maternity leave for mothers with two living children from 12 to 26 weeks.
- However, the Indian Maternity Benefit Act does not apply to women who work for themselves or in companies with fewer than ten employees.
- According to estimates, between 30 and 70 percent of women in a variety of professions encounter unwelcome verbal, visual, nonverbal, or physical harassment.
- In India, 53% of working women endure extreme levels of stress and mental health issues, according to a Deloitte report from 2023.
- Pay disparity: According to statistics, women make around 22% less money than males do on average.
- The daily wage for men in rural agricultural areas in India is 264.05, while the daily wage for women is 205.32, according to the Labour Bureau.
- For non-agricultural occupations, the average daily salary rate for males is 271.17 and for women it is 205.90.
- Unpaid Caregiving and Family Duties: Due to the needs of their families, women are regularly required and pressured to alter their employment. The few family issues that women in the workplace encounter are brought on by things like being a mother’s responsibility, juggling work and personal obligations, issues that arise from business travel or attending training sessions, safety concerns, etc.
- The Covid-19 Pandemic had a greater global impact on women’s labour market participation than it did on men.
- In some countries, men and women with advanced degrees still have different employment rates.
- Even while domestic or agricultural labour, which makes up the majority of employment in India, is unofficial, it is sometimes not documented.
How to Proceed:
- The 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted, and the commitment of world leaders to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” (SDG 5) and “to achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value” (SDG) by that year are proofs of this awareness.
- The Indian government has introduced a variety of initiatives to improve women’s employment opportunities.
- 2013 Act for the Prevention, Prohibition, and Redress of Sexual Harassment of Women at Work.
- Maternity Benefits Modification Bill, 2016.
- Women can now be hired by factories for night jobs in Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.
- NGOs help disadvantaged women in India by providing them with a steady source of income and a safe atmosphere where they can travel without fear of harassment. One such scheme is the Women on Wheels programme of the Azad Foundation.
Conclusion:
- According to a World Bank estimate, closing the gender wage gap would increase the global GDP by 26% and benefit both developed and developing countries. A McKinsey Global Institute study suggests that improving women’s equality might increase the global GDP by $12 trillion by 2025. India could make significant progress towards its goal of having a $5 trillion economy by 2024 by raising its GDP.
