More women are falling off the employment map
All Usha Devi wanted was to give her kids a good education. The wife of a construction worker knew that her husband’s income was not enough to educate her two children and, so, she took a job at a plastic factory.
Not everyone was pleased. Incensed that she was ‘going against Rajput tradition’, her husband’s uncle, Mamraj Singh objected and, when she refused to quit, hacked her to death on March 15.
The murder of Usha Devi points to India’s most shockingly under-reported story. Census data, backed by the World Bank shows us that 19.6 million women from all sectors — formal and informal, rural and urban, illiterate and educated — fell off the employment map.
In the eight months that I have been travelling across India to understand the obstacles to women’s employment, I have spoken to IT professionals and factory workers, chefs and chicken farmers and the chief roadblock, in a word, is this: Family.
It is families that impose gender roles and tell women that it is their responsibility to get dinner on the table (and clean and care for children and the elderly and, depending on where she lives, fetch water and firewood and fodder too).
Given the workload at home, very often when household incomes go up and they can afford to do so, women simply chuck up paid jobs.
Families hold back women in another important way. Men are free to choose their jobs and are, in fact, expected to work but women must first get an all-clear from fathers, brothers, husbands and in-laws. When this permission is granted, it is given very often only to ‘suitable’ jobs — beauty and healthcare, for instance.
Safe and affordable public transportation is another issue and women often opt for low paying jobs simply because they are close to home.
Educated women are leaving jobs faster than others.
An Indian Institute of Technology graduate with a master’s degree from the US told me that she couldn’t take the long hours. For her, as for most mums, 6 to 8 pm at home is sacrosanct; the only time they get with their children.
We know how equal participation in the economy by women could boost the GDP by 60%.
We know that it would improve women’s status in families and in society. We know that it would lead to better investment in their health and education.
“Womens’ economic empowerment is highly connected with poverty reduction, as women tend to invest more of their earnings on their children and community,” wrote Annette Dixon, World Bank vice president, South Asia.
All Usha Devi wanted was a better life for her children; for them to have the education she herself had never received.
No woman should ever have to die for this. The society, today, is full of self-centred people. Hardly does a day go by when we do not neglect our elders, owing to our packed schedules. Bikers and motorists pass by without the slightest of concern for an urgent call from a roadside victim.
Lack of etiquette can be commonly witnessed in public transport and hospital queues. The young and strong force their way even at the cost of elbowing aside the old. On the roadside, bikers ride past the elderly at top speed, honking so loudly that the latter are forced to shudder. Even those walking alongside push them aside and go ahead carelessly.
Even the Supreme Court has realised that senior citizens are facing unnecessary problems. Whether it is with their family, or at the workplace. What inhumanity is it that they are made to run from pillar to post due to issues like nonmatching physical records?
A society where the old and helpless are forced to undergo troubles for the vested interests of the young, is doomed to fall. There is no denying that the quantum of crimes in our society is not a healthy sign. Human societies cannot be protected by inhuman individuals.