Exclusion of women from white-collar and retail sales job, a major cause for low labour participation: World Bank Report

According to  a recent World Bank report, moderately educated Indian women are significantly less likely to find a job in India, compared to their higher or lower educated counterparts. 

The report titled, ‘Analyzing Female Employment Trends in South Asia’ sheds light on the reasons behind the extremely low rate of female employment in the subcontinent. The report finds that the problem of low female participation in the labour market is due to the exclusion of women from white-collar clerical and retail sales jobs.

These two sectors are among the major employment sectors for moderately educated workers, and typically female in the rest of the world. 

The report predicts that if all women who are engaged in domestic duties and are willing to work were to enter the labour force, India’s female labour participation would increase by 20 percent.

ALSO READ

Microenterprises can promote gender equity, spur job growth in India: report

The report highlights that gendered norms and legal barriers also act as hindrance for women to enter the labour force. Gendered norms that are entwined with status of women in a region, religion, caste cause significant differences in female labour participation. Marriage and husband’s role are also causes of limitations. If the husband believes that the wife working would be perceived as bad, the possibility of the wife entering the workforce falls. 

Legal barriers such as restrictions of working hours affect women from entering the workforce. 

Key findings of the report 

Even though South Asia is making rapid strides economically, there is a employment crisis that looms in these countries. There is a need to create new and better jobs, especially in India where the proportion of graduates in the overall working-age population has nearly doubled. However, women across the region have a low participation rate. The report, thus suggests that expanding productive employment and lowering barriers for entry of women in the workforce as necessary measures for inclusive growth in the region. 

The key findings of the report pertaining to the region are:

• overall since 2001, women's employment participation across South Asian countries has been low and broadly unchanged
• the gender employment gap emerges more clearly in middle age brackets
• rural female employment is higher than urban
• agriculture is the economic sector accounting for the greatest share of female employment, although this is slowly changing in some countries, and
• women with mid-level education tend to have lower employment rates than those with both lower and higher education.

(Edited by Rekha Balakrishnan)