A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Ghai, Surbhi Working Paper The anomaly of women's work and education in India Working Paper, No. 368 Provided in Cooperation with: Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) Suggested Citation: Ghai, Surbhi (2018) : The anomaly of women's work and education in India, Working Paper, No. 368, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/203702 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu Working Paper 368 The Anomaly of Women’s Work and Education in India Surbhi Ghai December 2018 INDIAN COUNCIL FOR RESEARCH ON INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS Table of Contents Acknowledgement ..................................................................................................................... i Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... ii 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 ILO Projections for Female Labour Force Participation Rates ................................ 2 1.2 International Comparatives ........................................................................................ 2 2. Estimating FLPR from National Data Sources ............................................................... 4 2.1 NSSO Quinquennial Employment and Unemployment Survey ................................... 4 2.2 Labour Bureau Employment and Unemployment Survey ........................................... 6 2.3 National Family Health Survey: Participation of Women in Cash Economy ............ 9 2.4 Consumer Pyramid Household Survey ..................................................................... 10 2.5 Time-Use Survey ....................................................................................................... 12 3. Explaining Falling Female Labour Force Participation Rates in India ..................... 14 3.1 Demand Side Factors................................................................................................ 14 3.2 Supply Side Factors .................................................................................................. 16 3.3 Measurement Errors ................................................................................................. 18 4. Education and Female Labour Force Participation Rates .......................................... 19 4.1 Examining the U-Shaped Hypothesis ....................................................................... 19 4.2 Revisiting the Role of Increasing Education Enrolment in Explaining the Decline in Female Labour Force Participation Rates ............................................................... 23 4.3 Examining the Factors that Impede the Translation of Higher Educational Attainment into Improved Labour Market Outcomes for Women ............................ 24 5. Testing Hypothesis: Patriarchy is Indicative of Poor Labour Outcomes for Women .... 26 6. Policy Recommendations................................................................................................. 32 6.1 Multi-Stakeholder Interventions that Shape Gender Attitudes ................................. 33 6.2 Support for Reducing the Time Burden .................................................................... 34 6.3 Imparting Quality Education and Skills ................................................................... 37 6.4 Creating Employment Opportunities through Quotas and Government Programmes .. 39 6.5 Encouraging Greater Participation of Women in Public Administration ................ 40 6.6 Adopting Legal Reforms to Dismantle ‘Protective Legislation’ ............................... 40 7. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 41 References ............................................................................................................................... 43 List of Tables Table 1: NSSO: Female Labour Force Participation Rates by Urban and Rural Areas; Usual Status ............................................................................................................. 5 Table 2: NSSO: Female Labour Force Participation Rates by Age-Group and Residence; Usual Status ............................................................................................................. 5 Table 3: Labour Bureau: Female Labour Force Participation Rate by Age Groups and Residence; Usual Status ........................................................................................... 7 Table 4: Labour Bureau: Size of the Female Labour Force (in millions); Usual Status ........ 7 Table 5: NSSO and Labour Bureau: Size of the Female Labour Force (in millions); Usual Status ........................................................................................................................ 8 Table 6: CMIE: Female Labour Force Participation Rates (LFPR) and Greater Labour Force Participation Rates; CMIE Methodology .................................................... 12 Table 7: Protective Legislation in India ............................................................................... 16 Table 8: NSSO: Wage Differential by Residence and Education level (2011-12) .............. 18 Table 9: Labour Bureau: Percentage of Women out of the Labour Force at each Education Level by Age Groups and Year (All India); UPS approach .................................. 21 Table 10: Labour Bureau: State-wise Highest and Lowest Percentage of Women (Ages15 and above) out of the Labour Force at each Education Level (2015-16); UPS approach ................................................................................................................. 23 Table 11: Principal Component Analysis between the Output Variables that Quantify Patriarchy ............................................................................................................... 28 Table 12: Correlation between Indicators of Patriarchy and Labour Market Outcomes of Women (2015-16) .................................................................................................. 32 Table 13: Representation of Women in All-India and Central Group A Services ................. 40 List of Figures Figure 1: ILO Projections for Female Labour Force Participation (Ages 15 and above) . 2 Figure 2: Countries with the Lowest Female Labour Force Participation Rates in the World (2015) ...................................................................................................... 3 Figure 3: Labour Bureau: Female Labour Force Participation Rates (Ages 15 and above); Usual Status .......................................................................................... 6 Figure 4: NFHS: Female Literacy, Participation in Economy and Total Fertility Rate (Various Rounds) ............................................................................................. 10 Figure 5: Percentage of Women (Ages 15 and above) out of the Labour Force at each Education Level (2015-16); UPS approach ..................................................... 20 Figure 6: State-wise Variation in Percentage of Women Graduates (Ages 15 and above) out of the Labour force (2015-16), UPS approach .......................................... 22 Figure 7: Labour Bureau: State-wise Variation in Percentage of Women (Ages 15 and above) with Postgraduate Degrees and above out of the Labour Force (2015- 16); UPS approach ........................................................................................... 22 Figure 8: Gross Enrolment Ratio (2014-15) .................................................................... 24 Figure 9: Correlation between Output Variables that Define the Patriarchy Index ........ 28 Figure 10: Patriarchy Index by State (2015-16) ................................................................ 29 Figure 11: Participation of Women in Household Decisions (2015-16); Percentage ....... 30 Figure 12: Child Sex Ratio (2015-16); Females per 1000 males ...................................... 30 Figure 13: Prevalence of Spousal Violence (2015-16); Percentage .................................. 31 Acknowledgement I am extremely grateful to Dr. Shashi Bala, Fellow,