FWPR in INDIA

FEMALE WORK PARTICIPATION
RATE (FWPR) IN INDIA

• The Census of India has been customarily
collecting and presenting disaggregated data
for male and female population. The
composition of population by gender is one of
the primary demographic characteristics of
human population around which meaningful
analysis is women.
• A worker is defined as a person who
participates in any economically productive
activity, which could be either physical or
mental in nature. The work involves not only
actual work but also effective supervision and
direction of work.
FWPR IN INDIA (COI)
• 1971 : 13.9%
• 1981 : 19.8%
• 1991 : 22.5%
• 2001 : 31.6%
• 2011 : 25.6%
• The Female Work Participation Rate in India is
far behind that of males.
• The 1971 definition of workers included only
such persons in the category of workers
whose main activity was economically
productive work. As a result households and
students who also have been participating in
economic activity for minor part of their time
got excluded from definition of labour force.
This definitional change had affected the
workers in general but the effect was felt more
among the women than men.
• As regard the 1971 and 1981 censuses there
was a considerable concern about the
undercount of female workers. And hence
1991 census was redefined to include ‘unpaid
workers’. In spite of these changes FWPR
according to 1991 census showed only a
marginal increase.
RURAL-URBAN FWPR
• Years Urban Rural
1971 6.68 13.42
1981 8.31 23.06
1991 9.2 26.70
2001 3.24 23.29
2011 14.7 24.8
• This may be due to the difficulty in combining
work with other household and other urban
duties in urban areas. In contrast in rural areas
work on the family or in the family enterprises
constitute the main activity, leading to a rise in
WPR.
• Moreover, in rural areas unmarried girls,
young wives, busy mothers as well as older
women are being forced by difficult economic
situations to seek some kind of employment.
As a result FWPR in the rural areas is much
higher than the participation rate in the urban
areas.
FEMINISATION OF AGRICULTURE
• In recent years men have been increasingly
move to the urban sectors in search of job
opportunities, mainly due to low productive
manual work of cultivation in rural areas.
These jobs are left to be done by their
womenfolk leading to a rise in rural FWPR.
This is one of the crucial factors responsible
for feminization of agriculture.
• Post reform period has also witnessed
diversion of land from food crops to
cultivation on a much larger scale to non-food
crops like floriculture and horticulture, all of
which employ a growing number of female
workers. This trend may therefore be another
reason leading to a rise in FWPR in the rural
sector.
FWP IN THE ORGANISED SECTOR
• the proportion of female employment in the
organized sector is far below that of male
employment, which signifies that in spite of
growing literacy, employment of women in
the organized sector is still negligible.
• Regarding the recent increase in women’s
employment, the Employment Market
Information Programme, which collects
employment statistics for the organized
sectors, has revealed that though employment
for women has increased in the organized
sector but it was highest in what is possibly
the most backward and low paying segments
in organized industry.
FWP IN THE UNORGANISED SECTOR
• The unorganized sector mean the informal,
traditional and unregulated sector. This sector
employs a large proportion of working women
in India.
• According to an estimate of the National
Commission on Self-Employment of Women,
92% of the total female workforce operates in
the unorganized sector.
• Workers in the unorganized sector are
unprotected by law and they are the most
vulnerable sections of the society with low
bargaining power.
• Wages in this sector tend to be extremely low
leading to high levels of poverty that affects the
overall health of a woman, children in terms of
calorie intake, health care and education which is
reflected in low human development index.
• In successive census, concept of workers has
been changing and some do not have a
comparable data of women and their exact
contribution to economic work. There is an
exclusion of a whole range of activities
performed by women, the unpaid economic
activities, their economic contribution in work
through domestic sectors; their long hours of
household work remain unaccounted.
FWPR INDIA:WORLD
• India ranks the second lowest in the Group of
20 (G20) economies when it comes to
women’s participation in the workforce,
according to a report published by aid
group Oxfam . It is above only Saudi Arabia, a
country that does not allow its women to
drive.
• When it comes to women’s economic
participation, India’s position seems fixed at the
bottom even when we compare it to the entire
world and not just the 20 major economies. It
ranks 124 out of 136 nations, according to a
World Economic Forum (WEF) report from last
year.
• All the BRICS nations rank much higher than
India. The 12 countries below India include
countries riven by political instability, such as
Pakistan, Egypt and Syria.
• The country’s GDP can increase by more than
a quarter if it can match male and female
employment rates, according to a report by
consulting firm Booz & Co..

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FEMALE WORK PARTICIPATION

RATE (FWPR) IN INDIA

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