Why are we starting a Digital Skill Development Program for Unemployed Women in India?

The Problem: Despite rising growth, fertility decline, and rising wages and education levels, women’s labor force participation has been constantly declining in India since 2005. 

Female Labour Force Participation Rates in India have been declining in the past 12 years according to ILO

Logic says that education should lead to jobs, but that’s not happening in India.

The logic that education should lead to jobs doesn’t seem very logical when it comes to women employment in India . In rural India, 67% of girls who are graduates do not work. In urban India, 68.3% of women who graduate don’t have paid jobs, says a 2015 report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Women’s Voices, Employment and Entrepreneurship in India.  

India’s female Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR)—the share of working-age women who report either being employed, or being available for work—has fallen to a historic low of 23.3% in 2017-18, meaning that over three out of four women over the age of 15 in India are neither working nor seeking work. If actions are not taken on an urgent basis, then the economic and employment gap between men and women will continue to widen in India at an alarming rate, which in turn will worsen the economic condition of the country.

Research reveals four primary factors that help explain India’s low—and potentially declining—FLFP rate:

1) the pervasiveness of entrenched patriarchal social norms that hinder women’s agency, mobility and freedom to work

2) rising household incomes that create a disincentive for labour market participation among women mainly informed by the same norms in (1)

3) the disproportionate burden of unpaid work and unpaid care work on women

4) the lack of quality jobs for women reinforced by gendered occupational segregation and a significant gender wage gap

?The Solution: Due to the pandemic we all are facing today, where we are expected to stay indoors and minimise our interaction with the outside world, most jobs are becoming remote and companies are hiring more and more people with ‘Digital and Remote’ working skills. Emerging technologies and digitisation are also transforming work in India. Labour relations, workplaces, industries and jobs themselves are being recast in the context of rapid technological adoption. 

It is within this context that existing gender disparities can either be reduced, or exacerbated. 

Since most jobs are becoming remote and digital, it is going to be easy for women to find great opportunities without stepping out of their homes. But for that they would need to develop some special digital skills which will allow them to work from anywhere with a PC and internet. So, we need to focus on programs and projects which will help women to develop such digital skills. It is in this light that Hockeystic decided to come up with a Digital Skill Development Program for Unemployed Women. This program is one little attempt for women to develop their digital skills to improve their employability in today’s world.

Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said that India needs to increase women's participation in the workforce to global average of 48 per cent in next 10 years as it will add another USD 700 billion to the GDP growth. It is not possible for India to grow at high rates of 9-10 per cent if half of the population is not in the workforce, and necessarily, that responsibility falls on men to ensure that women get into position of leadership.

If women participated in the economy at par with men, India could increase GDP by up to 60%, or $2.9 trillion, by 2025, according to a 2015 study by the McKinsey Global Institute, a think tank. At present, women contribute a mere 17% to the country’s GDP, well below the global average of 37%.

To solve the women employment problem of India, we have developed a ‘Digital Skill Development Program for women empowerment, job creation, economic growth and poverty reduction in India’.