FLFP in India Flashcards
Female labour force participation: Women that are employed or seeking work as a share of the working age female population
Does not include labour not done for a wage, like domestic work
Sahai (2020)
What is the relationship between female empowerment and economic development?
* Economic growth leads to increased female empowerement, leading to futher economic development
* However, economic development alone is insufficient to ensure significant progress in decision-making ability due to pervasive stereotypes
* Goldin’s (2006) work on the gender wage gap: convergence has levelled off because of cultural attitudes and internalisation of bias
Duflo (2012)
Time-pass as a gendered strategy of loitering and social identity
Jeffrey (2010)
Paper rejects the feminisation U hypothesis (that FLPF follows a U-shaped trend related to education levels)
* Instead, cross-country differences such as gender attitudes, religion and political ideology are more important
* Structural change does have a U pattern but effects are smaller than popularly argued
Gaddis & Klasen (2013)
Case study
Compares FLPF across South Asia and Latin America
* The two fastest-growing regions of S Asia and LAC experienced different gender gaps
* Most significant deterrent is cultural and gender norms on the supply-side
* The effect of education has been different across regions. For example, in India, rising education levels mean that educated women are unwilling to engage in low-paid unskilled jobs.
There is no universal relationship between gendered labour force participation and economic growth
*We need multipronged, country- and region-specific policies
Mukhopadhyay (2023)
ILO publication
Why is FLFP declining so sharply in India?
* Marked decline (10%) in FLFP, 2005-2010 when India was experiencing high average annual GDP growth, fertility rates were declining and state employment programmes were enacted
* Low FLPF reduces potential growth rates
* Competing hypothesis: U-curve; wealthier households leading to inactive women; one-off shocks in the data; lack of employment opportunities
* Report finds that structural characteristics, such as occupational segregation (42%), are more important in influencing decline than population characteristics like increased education and higher household wealth (18%)
* Men have benefited disproportionately from increased demand for highly skilled workers
* Less than 19% of new employment opportunities generated in the 10 fastest growing occupations over the study period were taken by women
Kapsos et al (2014)
Case study
Paper interviews 72 young women from low-income households in Delhi to explore links between job aspirations and job entry.
* Found that entry into training saw women aspire to the jobs for which they trained
* This has implications for policy which needs to focus on providing opportunities for young women to train e.g. providing job-related information, training that is physically accessible and creating support in parents
* Traditional concepts of occupational aspirations (i.e. goals that develop over time and lead to achievement) do not apply to young women in India due to
* Genderd constraints, inhibited capacity to aspire, compromised navigational capacity
* We need to be careful about where we are theorising from (James & Vira, 2010, 2012)
Sahai (2023)
Paper investigating impact of pandemic on FLFP in India.
* Women found to suffer the highest jobs and earnings losses
* Nearly 40% of women experienced no recovery VS 7% for men
* Women disproportionately employed in the worst affected sectors e.g. hospitality and retail
* India is already experiencing a youth bulge and the FLFP was already low/declining pre-pandemic
Policy needs to focus on pathways that provide meaningful opportunities for post-pandemic recovery.
Sahai et al (2023)
Case study
Digital mobility in India
* One of the factors identified in lecture as a limit to FLFP
* India exhibits one of the world’s largest gender gaps in technological access unexplained by income
* 71% of men vs 38% of women own mobile phones
* Curtailed digital mobility is related to gendered norms
* Mobile phones viewed as a risk since they could encourage promiscuity
Barboni et al (2018)
Gendered physical mobility in India
* Paper maps gender in 4 public spaces in Mumbai to show the gendered mobility of people
* Lower income men at road-side tea stalls, higher income men and women at cafes
* Men could go anywhere whereas women had determined places and trajectories to be
* Women had to have an appearance of purpose, avoid non-respectable places and choose the best route
* Reproducing hegemonic discourses of respectable femininity
Ranade (2007)
Case study
Married FLFP in India.
* In urban India, the LFPR for single women is 3x higher than married women
* Using a gig work platform, Rani Work, paper looks at how practical and domesticity constraints independently impact married women’s FLFP
* Random mix of in-person and at-home work
* Practical constraints removed: offices were women-only, located within a 5-minute walk and accommodated childcare needs
* Job take-up higher for home-based jobs (56%) than office-based jobs (27%), matching India’s general FLFP
* Beyond a certain wage threshold, higher pay did not incentivise more women to work from offices
* But among husbands, wages did drive job choices - so women’s higher preference for home-based work stems from gender-specific factors
* Difference is better explained through less tangible domesticity constraints e.g. purdah, social expectations
* Policies that focus on reducing practical barriers will not work - especially for married women - since determinants of labour supply are different
Could bringing job opportunities into the home be the best short-term solution in increasing the FLFP (or, in my opinion, will it further reify traditional gender boundaries)?
Jalota & Ho (2024)
Policy intervention case study
Investigates the impact of a 1993 law that reserved leadership positions for women in randomly selected village councils.
* The gender gap in aspirations closed by 20% in parents and 32% in adolescents in villages where there was a female leader for 2 election cycles
* With exposure, opinions about the ability of women to lead will change
* However, this does not change young women’s labour market opportunities - the impact is a role model effect, rather than systemic
Beaman et al (2012)
Free bus travel in Punjab (2021) and Delhi (2019)
Business Standard (2019, 2022)
