Essays

Liberalisation and globalisation are the catchwords that we assume will lead our country to its pinnacle of success. Such is the euphoria that very often we fail to look at the missing links. This is particularly evident with respect to the working class women of India whose problems and grievances generally go unheard. And further, universalisation tends to gloss over a mass of very vital differences, which are highly relevant in determining the position of women.

The negation of their position becomes apparent in the way we treat women worker's double burden of both housework and economic activities. In fact, policy makers at the macro level do not have a realistic perception of the household, and so consequently, the true impact of policies is not identified. Their policies are simply governed by economic parameters which assume that women make only a marginalised contribution to the economy. Only when women form part of the labour force in the market does their contribution enter statistics because a qualitatively weak human resource does not bode well for any kind of development. Hence unpaid domestic work, which forms a considerable contribution to the national product, is not accounted for. Indeed, the definition of economic activity used by both the Census and the National Sample Survey excludes a significant amount of unpaid or non-marketed labour produced within the household, especially by women. Thus, there is a likely to be an underestimation of economic activity within the household as well as of work participation rates.

The rule of the economic regime entering valuation within the household is obvious in the instance where boys are viewed as investable resources while girls are wasted investments and this is particularly evident with respect to India. Girls generally move to their husband's household after marriage and thereafter, convention rules that their entire work effort and its returns belong to the latter. Thus an important reason why parents are unwilling to spare scarce resources on educating/training a daughter: even if the returns for the labour of an educated/trained girl are expected to be high, these would not accrue to the bearers of the initial cost. Moreover, they may not accrue to the girl herself since it is the family household which takes the decision about how and when, if ever, to send the woman to the labour market and how to utilize her income.

The entry of liberalisation into this arena has not improved the fate of the working women. On the contrary, liberalisation has caused an increasing inequality in employment opportunities and incomes, even though the change in economy has brought about a visibility for the woman worker which did not exist before. But the greatly benefited are those who are better endowed, with more access to skills, and markets, and with more resources or better links internationally. In other words, for women at the upper income, upper skill end, the quality as well as opportunities for employment have improved. For most women workers, however, the quality of employment is poor, without opportunities either for skill development or for moving up the ladder.

Though the term 'feminisation of labour' is widely used in this era of liberaralisation and globalisation, data prove otherwise. Even in sectors where liberalisation has increased employment, women workers are getting paid less than men and, in most cases, much below the minimum wage. In fact, while gender wage disparities exist across all sectors and all occupations, the manufacturing sector appears to be the most discriminatory towards women. Coupled with gender discrimination in wage differentials is inequality in access to supreme positions and promotions.

Globalisation and liberalisation bring with them new technologies and fast changing markets which tend to make existing skills obsolete and demand continual upgradation. The problem here is more acute for women workers. Even in Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), the Government is reducing the workforce by throwing out the women first. Mechanisation has only aggravated this dilemma of rapid unemployment among the female workforce.

With respect to the nature of rural employment, the picture is also dismal. Agricultural wage labour is generally the least desirable form of employment taken up only by the poorest. Among such labourers, women are even poorer with the lowest wage levels, besides being vulnerable to seasonal fluctuations in the demand for agricultural labour. Almost 96% of the female workers are in this unorganised sector.

The so-called feminisation of employment in the urban organized sector has proved to be almost non-existent. Women are forced to take up jobs of a subsidiary nature in the informal sector for survival. These jobs pay less and offer no social security. Moreover, that women are not prone to unionising, are docile and accept less remuneration adds to their vulnerability.

The kind of work that women do in a particular economy and the characteristics that are usually associated with women's work in such a context, are very much a social construct which fits in with the general image of women that is sanctioned by the patriarchal ideology prevailing there. It is the households which are responsible for socialising girls in a way that ensures the latter's compliance with the roles and activities assigned to them by the socially sanctioned ideology. Indeed, patriarchal values that predominate in many parts of the world ensure that, by assigning woman with the responsibility for the nurture of their families, they have no choice but to play the triple role of  worker, housewife and mother. The lack of capital and assets, low and marginal income, aided by frequent accidents, sickness and other contingencies, poor working and living conditions, low bargaining power and lack of outside linkages and opportunities for skill up gradation - all these interlinked factors which are exacerbated by liberalisation and globalisation drag these women further into deprivation, trapping them in the vicious circle of poverty. Clearly, liberalisation has brought forth a dystopic vision for women workers who occupy the lower rung in our society.