Women, work, and employment outcomes in rural India

This paper analyses the trends and pattern of women’s employment in rural India using unit data from two types of large scale surveys. It shows that while rural women’s employment has grown over the decades, there has not been much improvement in outcomes. Women are still largely concentrated in agriculture as self-employed or casual labour. Women workers face various forms of discrimination, including job-typing that pushes them in low paying jobs. The paper analyses the determinants of women’s employment through regression analysis. The significant predictor variables are social group, age, marital status, landholding, wealth status, and women’s autonomy. Results show that higher work participation per se does not indicate higher welfare; only when accompanied by higher education, and /or assets does it lead to better employment outcomes. Further, education may not positively influence a woman’s participation in work, but for women who are in the workforce, education is the most important determinant of better quality non-agricultural work. Along with education, women’s autonomy measured in terms of access to land, control over its operation, mobility, and willingness to join self help groups enables her to move into non-agricultural jobs. The paper argues for policy interventions to provide work opportunities and better wages to rural women workers and builds the case for improving the education, information and skill level of women workers. It emphasises strategies to promote women’s control over assets and increase her autonomy. Finally the paper recommends policy initiatives and research to tackle the iniquitous functioning of the labour market in India, particularly with respect to valuing women’s work, fixing minimum wages for home based work and looking at the needs of women workers from the most disadvantaged social groups.