Snapshots from the launch of CEDA's new project to address India's worryingly low share of women in the workforce
Centre for Economic Data & Analysis, Ashoka University
CEDA facilitates informed debate about economic and social developments in India with data science & our research.
On November 22, 2022, the Centre for Economic Data and Analysis (CEDA) launched a new project on “Partnering with the private sector for Women’s Economic Empowerment” at the India International Centre, New Delhi.?
Over the last two decades, the labour force participation of women in India has been steadily declining, despite an increase in their educational attainment, decline in fertility rates, improvement in maternal mortality and noteworthy economic growth.?
According to World Bank estimates (2022), the female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) in India is abysmally low at just about 20%. This has serious consequences, both for the lives of Indian women and for the country at large.?
Introducing the project, Economics Professor Ashwini Deshpande , Director at CEDA, stressed on the need to pay attention to the demand-side barriers to be able to design solutions that work.?
"The mainstream view on this issue is that it is a supply-side issue, i.e. factors accounting for both the low level as well as the decline are those that adversely affect women’s labour supply, such as conservative social norms, marriage, motherhood, sexual harassment in public and work spaces, stigma attached to paid work.?
While these are all very important and real issues that affect women’s lives in critical ways, their correlation with FLFP in India is not as clear-cut. Also, factors accounting for the persistently low level of FLFP are not identical with factors accounting for the decline in FLFP in the last two decades,” she said.?
“We believe that demand-side issues are very important in this discussion and receive less attention than they should,” Professor Deshpande further added.
CEDA’s new project, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is an attempt to address this skew through a three-pronged approach that will work to?
Speaking at the event, Doorva Bahuguna , who helms private sector programs and BCC at The Udaiti Foundation said that this project will pilot intervention models and generate evidence to build toolkits and guidelines that can mitigate constraints to women's participation in formal work. The CEDA-Udaiti partnership will also engage with key stakeholders or "champions'' who can help build a case to gavanize change and adopt best practices”.
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Occupational choice is an important driver of low LFPR as women selectively work in low paying occupations, Anisha Sharma who is co-leading research on entrepreneurship explained.? One reason for the occupational choices that women make is not having enough information about the skills required to enter occupations which have higher returns, and to build and grow businesses in non-traditional sectors. Secondly, occupational choices are largely motivated by social norms around specific occupations, she explained.
Kanika Mahajan then shared the details of her research about women’s jobs. Her research will focus on the barriers women face in accessing paid employment opportunities including how job openings are worded, recruitment processes, wage gaps, requirements to migrate, commute time, and conducive work environments.??
Sabyasachi Das and SK Ritadhi walked the audience through the plan for developing a gender-data portal, which will be a specialised, state-of-the-art data hub, which will present gender statistics for India, across time and regions within the country, on a broad range of spheres.?
The keynote address for the day was delivered by Ruchee Anand , Senior Director, Talent and Learning Solutions at LinkedIn India who highlighted how the work ecosystem was often biased against women. In India women’s representation falls to 15% at the C-Suite as against 28% at entry level (as compared to 25% and 46% respectively at the global level), she shared. Recruiters were 13 percent less likely to check women’s job profiles and men were 42 percent more likely to be promoted to leadership roles in India.?
?“The future of work has to be based on flexibility, upskilling and equity,” said Anand, adding that a ‘skills-first’ approach in hiring expands talent pools and could help improve the hiring of women.?
The event concluded with a stellar panel comprising Anna Roy , Senior Adviser, NITI Aayog; Yamini Atmavilas , President, The Udaiti Foundation; Seema Bansal , Partner and Director, BCG; Shaili Chopra , Founder, SheThePeople; Sharanya Chandran , Associate Director Policy, J-PAL South Asia; Saachi Bhalla , Senior Program Officer, BMGF,? and Ashish Dhawan , Founder & CEO, The Convergence Foundation and Global Board Member, BMGF.?
Please visit our website to know more about the project.