Gender Issues in Employment

Amarjeet Kaur
Ministry of Labour and Employment Government of India

The views expressed in this paper are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), or its Board of Governors, or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this paper and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. The countries listed in this paper do not imply any view on ADB's part as to sovereignty or independent status or necessarily conform to ADB's terminology.

Indias Resilience & Vision

India is committed to faster, inclusive and sustainable growth, which is the fundamental objective of present and next Five Year Plan (2012-17) Employment growth to be targeted at least at 2.5 per cent per annum compatible with the 9 percent GDP growth in the economy
Promote labour intensive and high employment elasticity sectors to achieve the quantitative employment growth target Focus on inclusion of youth, women and vulnerable groups with their specific needs of training and skill development Provisions to empower women socially, economically and educationally and provide improved conditions of work and remuneration
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Employment - Profile
India is a vast country with a population of around 1.20 billion and a work force of around 465 million -131 million females(28%) about 87.5 million women workers in agriculture Open unemployment of 9.5 million as per estimates for 2009-10 Proportion of population in the working age group (15-59 years) likely to increase from 58% in 2001 to more than 64% by 2021 54% population under the age of 25 years (Census, 2001)- youngest nation in the world

About 6% of the total work force in India in the organized sector while remaining 94% in the unorganised sector
Mismatch between skills supply and demand - excess labour supply in relation to demand
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Employment - Profile
Migration of the labour force from the rural to urban areas- limitations of agriculture sector

Variations in the availability of work during different seasons

Social and cultural factors restricting large number of women workers to participate in labour market, etc.

Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Act, a major labour market initiative at least one-third beneficiaries to be women. 48% persondays employment provided to women during 2010-11
Other major employment generation programmes of Government of India such as Swarn Jayanti Shahri Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY), Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) & Prime Ministers Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) also encourage employment to women

Employment - Profile
Work force Participation Rate (WPR) Male Female Persons

1999-00 2004-05 2009-10

** Rural 32.7 Urban 16.6

52.7 54.7 54.6

25.9 28.7** 22.8*

* Rural - 26.1 Urban - 13.8

39.7 42.0 39.2

Empowering Women
The National Policy for Empowerment of Women, 2001 (NPEW) formulated as the blueprint for the future, with the express goal of addressing womens felt needs and bringing about their advancement, development and empowerment National Mission for Empowerment of Women launched on 8th March, 2010 with objective to empower women socially, economically and educationally by securing convergence of schemes/programmes of different Ministries/Departments of Government of India as well as State Governments. National Mission Authority (NMA) headed by the Prime Minister National Commission for Women set up by an Act of Parliament in 1992 to safeguard the rights and legal entitlements of women 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments (1993) to provide for reservation of seats for women in the local bodies of Panchayats and Municipalities
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Empowering Women
Ratification of the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1993 to secure equal rights to women Upgradation of Department of Women and Child Development to a Ministry with effect from 30th January, 2006 Rashtriya Mahila Kosh - set up as a society in 1993 to meet the credit needs of the poor and assetless women in the informal sector. Corpus of about 33 million US$ during 2010-11 Equal Remuneration Act - provides for the payment of equal remuneration to men and women workers and for the prevention of discrimination, on the ground of sex, against women in the matter of employment and the matters connected therewith or incidental thereto India's vision to realize human resource potential to its fullest in the education sector, with equity and inclusion. In line with this, India committed to providing free and compulsory education to all children of 614 years as fundamental right
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Empowering Women
Education to girl child upto 12th standard provided free in Government schools This will empower women labour force to enter in occupational world more confidently and competitively

A Cell for women labour functioning in the Ministry of Labour & Employment to pay special attention to the problems of women labour. Inter-alia responsible for the following : (i) Coordinating effort in respect of women labour within the policy framework on women drawn by Ministry of Women and Child Development (ii)Work in conjunction with Ministry of Women and Child Development and provide useful inputs on women workforce for effective formulation of Programmes and Policies on the subject
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Empowering Women
Vocational Training for Women

11 Centres in the country with a view to train young women in employable trades - one at national level (National Vocational Training Institute) and 10 at regional levels, Regional Vocational Training Institutes (RVTI)
Trades include Dress making, Secretarial practice, electronic mechanic, hair & skin care, instrument mechanic, computer operator and programming assistant, architectural draftsmanship, fashion technology, etc. 12 new RVTIs to be established in PPP mode

Out of 9404 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), 1409 either exclusively for women or have women wings
30% reservation in general ITIs under the State Governments

Support to Training & Employment Programme for Women (STEP) -started in 1986-87, seeks to upgrade skill of poor and assetless women and provide employment on sustainable basis by mobilizing them in viable cooperative groups, strengthening marketing linkages, support services and access to 9 credit

Policy Initiatives
National Employment Policy drafted - Gender sensitive employment policies that take into account the special circumstances and problems of women to be enunciated on a periodic basis. Such policies to aim at shifting women from invisible to visible work, from low productive employment, especially in agriculture, to high productive employment, and from low wage and no social security to higher wage with social security Government of India is committed to providing access to skills and training so that young people can contribute fully to nation building National Policy on Skill Development launched in 2009 - Target of skilling 500 million people by 2022 Skill Development to be an agent of change in promoting womens employment policy aims to raise womens participation to at least 30% by 2011-12
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Policy Initiatives
Pro-active measures such as hostels, scholarships, transport, training materials and loans to be made available on a large scale to facilitate participation of women Expansion of institutional network for providing training facilities Identification of the sectors which employ a large number of women like construction, home-based traditional crafts, financial and health services, agriculture, etc. to promote skills and employability of women To eliminate gender stereo-typing in vocational courses to encourage womens participation in non-traditional occupations India committed to providing equal opportunity and access to gainful employment and to end all systematic barriers to women entry into the labour market.

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Thank You

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