Patriarchy is forcing women out of jobs

To ensure growth, the State must explore ways to get them into the workforce

The World Bank’s India Development Report, which was released on Monday, has said India has one of the world’s lowest female participation in the workforce, ranking 120th among 131 countries. It added that the while overall job creation has been limited, most of the new ones have been grabbed by men given the social norms. And this is not all: The participation level of women has been dropping since 2005, despite having 42% women who are graduates.

Despite high levels of educational attainment and also declining fertility rates, women seem to be missing from the formal economy. Research done by Rohini Pande, a professor of public policy at Harvard University, sheds light on why it is critical to have more women in the workforce: Working, and the control of assets it allows, lowers rates of domestic violence and increases women’s decision-making in the household. Her analysis of data shows that over a third of women engaged primarily in housework want a job but they don’t get or are not allowed to do thanks to “persistence of India’s traditional gender norms, which seek to ensure “purity” of women by protecting them from men other than their husbands and restrict mobility outside their homes”. The other challenges include: Lack of access to traditional maledominated job networks and also the fact that women often end up in lower-paid and less-responsible positions than their abilities would otherwise allow them – which, in turn, makes it less likely that they will choose to work at all.

In the recent times, the discussion in India has been overwhelmingly on lack of jobs. While that is a real challenge, policymakers must also invest energy to figure out ways to ensure that women have the opportunity to undertake rewarding work — “work that will allow them to determine the course of their own lives, those of their families and that of their country,” as Ms Pande writes in an article.