Abstract
Women’s work has undergone an evolutionary process over long years of history and examined under different feminist framework. Especially, there have been sea changes in the women’s work paradigm since the 1990s. The globalisation with the opening of economies, technological progress and improvement in communications facilities has made perceptible impact women’s pattern of work, particularly in the South Asian countries. Their pattern of work in the Indian labour market also has also changed over the years. Women’s employment has shifted from farm to non-farm sectors—modern services or industries—in the past two–three decades. In particular, women’s participation in regular paid non-farm modern services and industry such as information and communication technology, electronics and domestic workers in urban areas have increased significantly. Women’s participation in Indian labour market has shown a declining trend in the recent decade at overall level with the existing traditional role of society or patriarchy, unfavourable workplace environment, job insecurity, high educated youth unemployment, feminisation of farm sector and emerging new technologies are posing serious policy challenge. The recent PLFS survey of 2017–18 reveals the continuum of declining women’s participation in the labour market with high unemployment rate among both male and female youth in rural as well as urban areas. The survey report also confirms that there has been an acceleration in the quality of employment for female regular workers in urban areas but the employment conditions are deteriorating over the years.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Patriarchy is the term used to describe the society in which we live today, characterized by current and historic unequal power relations between women and men, whereby women are systematically disadvantaged and oppressed. This takes place across almost every sphere of life but is particularly noticeable in women’s under-representation in key state institutions, in decision-making positions and in employment and industry. Male violence against women is also a key feature of patriarchy. Accessed from http://londonfeministnetwork.org.uk/home/patriarchy.
- 2.
This is only indicative and does not focus on deflationary macroeconomic policies such as fiscal restraint, privatisation, introduction of market principles (‘quasi markets’) into the public sector and labour market liberalisation and so on, see UNRISD (2012) for details on these.
References
Abraham V (2013) Missing labour or consistent ‘De-Feminisation’? Econ Polit Wkly 48(31)
Agrawal T (2016) Eur J Dev Res 28(2):330–351
Amsden A (2001) The rise of the “Rest”: challenges to the west from Late-Industrializing countries. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Andres LA, Dasgupta B, George J; Abraham V, Correia MC (2017) Precarious drop: reassessing patterns of female labour force participation in India, World Bank Policy Research, Working Paper 8024
Annual Report, Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), (July 2017–June 2018), Government of India, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, National Statistical Offices
Bacchus N (2005) The effects of globalisation on women in developing nations’ honors college theses, Paper 2, from http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/honorscollege_theses/2. Accessed 28 Jan 2019
Barrientos S, Mathur K, Sood A (2010) Decent work in global production networks: challenges for vulnerable workers in the Indian garments sector in Posthuma, A. and Nathan D. (eds), Labour in Global Production Networks in India. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 126–143
Berik G (2009) Growth with gender inequity: another look at east asian development in G. Berik, G., Y. van der Meulen Rodgers, and A. Zammit (eds), Social justice and gender equality: rethinking development strategies and macroeconomic policies. New York, London, and Abingdon Routledge and UNRISD: 154–187
Boserup E (1970) Women’s role in economic development, (first South Asian edition 2008. Earthscan, London, Sterling, VA
Chakravarty D (2004) Expansion of markets and women workers: case study of garment manufacturing in India. Econ Polit Wkly 39(45):4910–4916
Chamberlain P (2017) The feminist fourth wave: affective temporality. Palgrave, Macmillan, UK
Dejardin AK (2008) Gender dimensions of globalisation. In: Discussion paper, Oslo conference on decent work—a key to social justice for a fair globalisation, 4 Sept 2008
Economic Survey (2017–18) Ministry of Finance India (MoFI) (2018) http://mofapp.nic.in:8080/economicsurvey/. Accessed 27 Feb 2019
Elson D (1992) Male bias in structural adjustment. In: H Afshar, C Dennis (eds) Women and adjustment policies in the third world. Macmillan Academic and Professional Ltd., Hong Kong
Fletcher EK, Rohini P, Charity TM (2017) Women and work in india: descriptive evidence and a review of potential policies, CID Working Papers 339, Center for International Development at Harvard University
Ghadially R (ed) (2007) Urban women in contemporary India: a reader. Sage, New Delhi
Ghose AK (2016) Globalization, growth and employment in India, Indian Journal of Human Development, 10(2):127–156.
Ghosh J (2003) Exporting jobs or watching them disappear? Relocation, employment and accumulation in the world economy. In: Ghosh Jayati, Chandresekhar CP (eds) Work and well-being in the age of finance. Tulika Books, New Delhi
Himanshu (2017) Is informal the new normal. 22 May 2017. Livemint
Hirway I (2012) Missing labour force: an explanation. Econ Polit Wkly 57(37):67–72
IER (2014) India labour employment report. Academic Foundation and Institute for Human Development, New Delhi, p 2014
ILO (2010) Women in labour markets: measuring progress and identifying challenges. ILO, Geneva
ILO (2018a, June) Emerging technologies and the future of work in India. In: ILO Asia-Pacific working paper series, Tandem Research
ILO (2018b) World employment social outlook: trends for women 2018, Global snapshot, Geneva
Jomo KS (2003) Globalization, liberalization and equitable development: lessons from East Asia: programme on overarching concerns. Paper No. 3. UNRISD, Geneva
Kaldor N (1967) Strategic factors in economic development. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Kelkar G (2013) At the threshold of economic empowerment: women, work and gender regimes in Asia, International Labour Organization, 2013 ILO Asia-Pacific working
Klasen S, Pieters J (2013) What explains the stagnation of female labor force participation in urban india? IZA Discussion Paper 7597, Institute for the Study of Labour
Lewis WA (1954) Economic development with unlimited supplies of labour, The Manchester School 22(2):139–191
Lim L (1990) Women’s work in export factories: the politics of a cause. In: Tinker I (ed) Persistent inequalities: women and world development. Oxford University Press, New York
Mazumdar I (2007) Women workers and globalisation: emergent contradiction in India. Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi, p 2007
Mazumdar I, Neetha N (2011) Gender dimensions: employment trends in India, 1993–94 to 2009–10. Econ Polit Wkly 46(43):118–126
Mazumdar I, Pillai N (2011) Gender dimensions: employment trends in India, 1993–94 to 2009–10, Econ Polit Wkly 46(43):89–93
Mehrotra S (2017) Explaining falling female employment during a high growth period. Econ Polit Wkly 52(39)
Mehta BS (2017a) Labour market conditions in information and communication technology sector in India. Shivalik Prakashan, New Delhi
Mehta BS (2017b) Inequality, gender and socio-religious groups, Econ Polit Wkly 52(8):56–60
Mehta BS (2018) Glaring inequality and HDI, Financial Chronicle: Oct 5, 2018 (Editorial). https://www.mydigitalfc.com/editorial/glaring-inequality-hdi. Accessed on 27 January, 2018
Mehta BS, Awasthi IC (2019) Industry 4.0 and future of work in India. FIIB Bus Rev 8(1):9–16
Mitter S (2000) Tele-working and Tele-Trade in India: combining diverse perspectives and visions. Econ Polit Wkly 35(26):2241–2252
Mondal B, Jayati G, Shiney C, Sona M (2018) Women workers in india: labour force trends, occupational diversification and wage gaps, SWI Background Paper 2018–3. Azim Premji University, Bangalore
Nathan D (2007) Globalisation of labour. Econ Polit Wkly 42(39):3095–4001
NCEUS (2009) The challenge of employment in India—an informal economy perspective. NCEUS, New Delhi
Neetha N (2002) Flexible production, feminisation and disorganization—evidence from Tiruppur Knitwear Industry. Econ Polit Wkly 37(21):2045–2052
Ng C, Mitter S (eds) (2005) Gender and the digital economy: perspectives from the developing world, Sage, New Delhi
Presser HB, Gita S (eds) (2000) Women’s empowerment and demographic processes: moving Beyond Cairo. Oxford University Press, New York
Razavi S, Arza C, Braunstein E, Cook S, Goulding K (2012) Gendered impacts of globalization: employment and social protection. UNRISD research paper 2012–13. UNRISD, Switzerland
Rustagi P (2013) Changing patterns of labour force participation and employment of women in India. Indian J Labour Econ 56(2)
Saith A, Vijayabaskar M (2008) ICT and Indian economic development: economy, work, regulation. Sage, New Delhi
Sargent L (ed) (1981) Women and revolution. South End Press, Boston
Singh Navsharan, Kaur Rupinder, Kaur Sapra M (2003) Continents wide and layers deep: the readymade garment industry in the times of restructuring. Mimeo, NCAER, New Delhi
Standing G (1999) Global feminization through flexible labor: a theme revisited. World Dev 27(3):583–602
UNRISD (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development) (2012) Gendered impacts of globalization: employment and social protection. UNRISD Research and Policy Brief No. 13, Geneva: UNRISD
World Bank (2011) World development report 2012: gender equality and development. World Bank, Washington, DC
World Economic Forum (2017) Accelerating workforce re-skilling for the fourth industrial revolution. https://www.weforum.org/whitepapers/accelerating-workforce-reskilling for-the fourth-industrial-revolution. Accessed 5 March 2019
World Economic Forum (2018) Global gender gap report. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-gender-gap-report-2018. Accessed 5 March 2019
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mehta, B.S., Awasthi, I.C. (2019). Background: Women and Work. In: Women and Labour Market Dynamics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9057-9_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9057-9_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-9056-2
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-9057-9
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)