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Notice (8): Undefined variable: urlPrefix [APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8]latest-news-updates/thanks-for-the-bank-fm-but-what-about-jobs-subodh-varma-19704.html"/> LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Thanks for the bank FM, but what about jobs?-Subodh Varma | Im4change.org
Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Thanks for the bank FM, but what about jobs?-Subodh Varma
-The Times of India

Despite the recent hype, one of the key drivers of women's empowerment — jobs for women — remains neglected and forgotten by policymakers. A recently released survey shows that more women are remaining home-bound doing domestic duties than a decade ago, even though a large number of them are willing to work.

These are some of the findings of a report of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) on participation of women in domestic duties. The survey was carried out in 2009-10 and covered over one lakh households.

Share of women mainly doing domestic duties hovered around the 35% mark between 1999-2000 and 2004-05, but increased sharply to over 40% in 2009-10 in rural areas, the report says. In urban areas the share of home-makers rose from 45% in 1999-2000 to 48% in 2009-10.

"As women lose paid work in the economy, they revert to just doing domestic duties," explains Neetha N, a researcher at the Center for Women's Development Studies, Delhi. In 1999-2000, share of working women was 23% in rural areas which rose to 24% in 2004-05 and then declined to 20% in 2009-10, as per NSSO data.

To remove any distortion in these figures due to increasing enrollment of girls in education, here is the data for women over 15 years old: the proportion mainly doing domestic duties has grown from 54% to 57% in rural areas over the decade while there is a very slight decline from 64.8% to 64.2% in urban areas.

Age-wise trends show that in the 30 to 44 years age group, share of women doing mainly house-work increased from 55% to 63% in rural areas, and in the 45-59 years age group, this share increased from 55% to 59%.

In urban areas, the trends are similar though muted. But the proportion is still staggering — nearly two-thirds of urban women, mostly educated, are out of the visible economy.

Among the home-bound non-working women over 15 years old 19% in rural areas and 18% in urban areas said that they would like to work from home. This indicates that a women's participation in work could more than double if they work was available, and if male family members shared some of the domestic work.

In the NSSO survey, women who were home-bound were asked for reasons. "The options given to them are ridiculous, but that's the way they always do these surveys," says Neetha, who has done considerable research with such survey reports.

Among women who were "required" to do domestic duties, that is, they had no alternative but to remain home, the biggest reason stated by almost two-thirds of the women was "no other member to carry out the domestic duties". That's code for: male members are not willing to do the work.

About 17% women said that social or religious reasons compelled them to remain at home and about 8% said that they had to do domestic work because they "could not afford hired help".

The survey also delved into the women's domestic world finding out the nuts and bolts of their work. In rural areas, women's domestic duties included maintaining kitchen gardens (24%), looking after poultry etc. (25%), collecting firewood (42%), making cow-dung cake (42%), and fetching water (37%). The survey did not ask about 'standard' women's work like cooking food, washing clothes caring for children, elderly and sick, etc.

In urban areas, most of such work is not required or possible. About 23% women did sewing and tailoring, and about 13% women tutored their children. Fetching water (13%) and looking after kitchen gardens (11%) were also some of urban women's preoccupations.