Liberalisation was expected to formalise India’s largely informal agrarian economy, with labour moving from agriculture–the largest employer–to the organised industrial sector. The formal and informal sectors are distinguished based on size of workplace and accompanying government regulations on working hours, hiring and firing norms, rights of association, minimum wages, and other aspects.

Liberalisation aimed to effect a decline in poverty and a rise in living standards through better wages and working conditions as labour moved toward formal jobs. Yet, in 2011-12, 51% of all jobs in the organised sector were informal, data show.

The number of informal sector workers increased from 341.28 million in 1999-2000 to 386.02 million in 2011-12, a 13% increase over 13 years. The number of formal workers increased by 81.5% from 20.46 million to 37.15 million in the same time period.

However, while formal workers comprised 6% of the total workforce in 1999-2000, this increased to just 9% in 2011-12, showing that the jobs that were created in the formal sector were mainly informal, employing workers with low earnings and with limited or no social protection.

Recent studies have confirmed that this trend has continued. A January 2019 report by Delhi-based economic policy think-tank ICRIER found that while total employment in the organised manufacturing sector had increased 78% to 13.7 million in 15 years to 2015-16, the share of contract workers in total employment had increased from 15.5% to 27.9%, and that of directly hired workers had fallen 10.8 percentage points to 50.4% in the same period, as IndiaSpend reported on March 28, 2019. At 8.3%, the average growth rate of contract employment was five percentage points more than that of regular employment.

Manufacturing companies are hiring more informal workers for short durations through contractors and fewer directly as permanent staff, as IndiaSpend reported on March 28, 2019, from the site of a labour-management dispute at a multinational manufacturers’ zone in Alwar, Rajasthan. Such workers get paid less, have poorer working conditions, and less job security, our investigation had found.

The International Labour Organization and the World Employment Federation have described predominance of informal employment as an indicator of lower quality of life, as workers in such jobs are vulnerable, without the social protections afforded to workers in formal jobs.

On the other hand, according to some economists, it is better to be employed and earn something than remain unemployed.

This story continues our investigation of the employment situation in India. Read other stories in our ongoing investigation here.

More informal jobs

Over half of informal sector workers in 2012 were self-employed, largely with a poor asset-base, and around 30% were casual labourers seeking daily wages, according to a University of Calcutta 2018 study of informal sector workers across India. About 18% of those employed were regular workers, and among them less than 8% had regular, full-time employment with social protection.

The 17th International Conference of Labour Statisticians held by the International Labour Organization in 2003 defines informal employment as those jobs where “…employment relation is, in law or in practice, not subject to national labour legislation, income taxation, social protection or entitlement to certain employment benefits (advance notice of dismissal, severance pay, paid annual or sick leave, etc.)”.

Source: Azim Premji University, State Of Working India, 2018

There can be informal work in the organised, formal sector and formal work in the unorganised, informal sector as well. Employment opportunities in the organised sector increased by 8.4% between 2004-05 and 2009-10, according to NSSO data, but the share of informal employment in this sector increased from 32% in 1999-2000 to 54% in 2004-05 and 67% in 2011-12.

That the phenomenon of increased workers in informal employment is on the rise in both the unorganised and organised sectors is confirmed by this study published in the International Organization of Scientific Research Journal of Business and Management in April 2018. The percentage of informal workers in the formal sector has increased from 38% in 1999 to 51% in 2011-12, the study said.

Increase In Informal Workers & Informal Sector, 1999-2000 to 2011-12

Sources: National Sample Survey, 1999-2011

While the services sector contributed most of the 61 million jobs created between 1991 and 2012, most of these remained informal in nature. Of 127.3 million people employed in the services sector in 2011-12, 80% were informal workers.
 

Source: National Institute of Labour Economics Research, 2014
Note: Figures in million

While agriculture continues to provide the major share of employment, its share decreased from 58% in 2004-05 to 49% in 2011-12. Most of the employment here is informal in nature, with the informal workforce increasing.

The manufacturing sector’s share of total employment increased from 12% in 2004-05 to 13% in 2011-12.

The services sector also saw an increase from 107.3 million in 2004-05 to 127.3 million (19% increase) in 2011-12, but 80% of the jobs are informal.

More female workers in informal jobs

A gender-wise breakup of the informal workforce shows 252 million male and 118 million female workers in 1999-2000. This increased to 270 million male workers in 2009-10, but female workers decreased to 108 million during the same time period, NSSO data reveal. This is accompanied by a decline in regular salaried work for female workers and increase in self-employed, casual labour from 1983 to 2011-12.

Type Of Work Taken Up By Female And Male Workers

Source: India’s Informal Employment in the Era of Globalization: Trend and Challenges, IOSR Journal Of Business Management, April 2018

Female informal workers are mainly engaged in agriculture , with some presence in manufacturing, trade, hotel, restaurants, community, social personal, services and construction.

At the all-India level, for the 68th round (2011-12) of the National Sample Survey, the proportion of self-employed workers was higher among females (51.2%, for both urban and rural) than among males (48%). Regular wage/salaried employees constituted a higher proportion of the urban workforce (43.6%) compared to rural areas.

It is also evident that the proportion of self-employment together with casual (informal) labour is higher among the rural female workforce (94.4%), compared to 57.1% among urban females, 56.1% among urban males and 90% among rural males.

Thus, even though overall employment and female labour force participation has increased since 1983, most jobs are informal, showing increasing “casualisation of the workforce”, the University of Calcutta 2018 study said.

The overall decline in casual employment and increase in regular employment of urban females is a promising development, according to a 2018 study by Charuchandra College, Kolkata.

The share of regular wage/salaried employees was merely 7.8% of the rural workforce, according to this study, while it was 56.8% in urban areas.

Self-employment together with casual labour had a share of nearly 92.2% of the total workforce in the rural areas.

Why informal jobs

The State of Working India 2018 study by Azim Premji University pointed to the lack of formal education and other barriers to entry in the formal sector as reasons for increase in informal workers in the organised services and manufacturing sectors.

In manufacturing, the increase in informalisation is due to two reasons, according to a 2018 study by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations: first, because of dispersal of production from larger to smaller units; and second, because of the creation of an informal workforce subject to fewer regulations, the fact that employing contract (or informal) workers reduces the bargaining power of the regular or formal worker, suppressing wages overall.

Increased import competition has also led to informalisation of industrial labour as manufacturers seeks to improve their competitiveness by paying lower wages to informal workers and makings savings by forgoing expenditure on worker benefits, an Oxfam report from 2018 said.

(Salve is a senior analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend

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The leading national political parties’ manifestos differ on how to address these issues. IndiaSpend examines the manifestos of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Indian National Congress (Congress) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) to compare how they propose to address these issues, as well as foreign relations, infrastructure and health.
 

Source: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Indian National Congress (Congress) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Joblessness
The BJP proposes to promote infrastructure development as a means to create jobs. The Congress focuses on interventions such as filling up vacant government posts, and expanding social infrastructure such as health and education services to create more jobs. In rural areas, the Congress promises to increase the number of days employment provided under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) from 100 to 150 in districts and blocks where 100 days of employment have been achieved. The CPI-M, on the other hand, promises an unemployment allowance, removing the halt on government recruitment, and providing 200 days of work under MGNREGS.

Farm crisis
The BJP is planning on continuing its schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana and the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. Both the Congress and CPI-M have promised to eliminate the Fasal Bima Yojana in its present form, as both parties claim that the scheme has benefitted insurance companies more than the farmers.

The Congress promises that it will revamp the scheme, and also promises an all-round loan waiver. The Congress has made specific promises to recognise the ownership and tenancy rights of women farmers so they can benefit from agriculture schemes. It also promises a special ‘Kisan Budget’ to address the crisis in agriculture.

The CPI-M promises loan waivers and that it will enforce the increases in Minimum Support Prices (MSP) to cover full costs including family labour, land rent and so on, and provide a return of at least 50% above costs, as per the recommendation of the National Commission on Farmers chaired by eminent agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan.

National security
The BJP has reiterated its policy of zero tolerance towards terrorism and speeding up of defence purchases. It has also promised to continue to carry out the ‘Make in India’ defence programme, which it hopes will also create jobs.

Meanwhile, the Congress focuses on increased defence spending and developing domestic capability to develop weapons and other equipment. The party has also expanded the purview of national security to include data security, cyber security, financial security and communication security.

Both parties have also promised to ensure the welfare of the armed forces under the wider ambit of national security, with the BJP promising that armed forces personnel will be provided resettlement facilities before three years of retirement, under which they can learn soft skills, and get financial support for higher education, housing and starting an enterprise.

The Congress has promised that it will set up a committee to draft new service rules for the personnel of the Central Armed Police Forces and increase the representation of women to achieve a minimum of 33% in the force strength of the Central Industrial Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force and Border Security Force.

Health
Health features prominently in all parties’ manifestos.

The Congress has promised to raise health spending to 3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2023-24 if elected, and to introduce a Right to Health for all citizens. The Congress has also said that the insurance-based model “cannot be the preferred model to provide universal healthcare”, and has promised to “promote and implement the free public hospitals-model”, and strengthen primary healthcare systems.

Echoes of this approach are found in the CPI-M manifesto as well.

The Congress has also promised that not only will it ensure payment dues to Accredited Social Health Activist and anganwadi workers (community health worker instituted by the government of India’s ministry of health and family welfare, and ministry of women and child development) but will also hire two ASHAs for each village with a population larger than 2,500.

The BJP will continue to support the health insurance scheme, Ayushman Bharat Yojana or National Health Protection Scheme. The party has also promised that it will embark on a mass movement under the National Nutrition Mission and also roll out a special mission to eliminate tuberculosis from India by 2025.

Special focus areas

BJP
The ruling party has promised that it will explore all possibilities within the framework of the Constitution and all necessary efforts to facilitate the expeditious construction of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

The party will also “undertake every effort to ensure that the subject of faith, tradition and worship rituals related to Sabarimala are presented in a comprehensive manner before the Hon’ble Supreme Court”. It will secure constitutional protection on issues related to faith and belief.

The BJP has reiterated its stand on Article 370–which gives autonomous status to the state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K)–saying it is committed to annulling Article 35A of the Constitution of India that empowers the J&K legislature to confer privileges to permanent residents. The BJP manifesto argues that this provision discriminates against non-permanent residents and the women of J&K who lose privileges if they marry non-permanent residents.

“We believe that Article 35A is an obstacle in the development of the state,” the manifesto states, adding, “We will make all efforts to ensure the safe return of Kashmiri Pandits and we will provide financial assistance for the resettlement of refugees from West Pakistan, Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK) and Chhamb.”

It also promises a Uniform Civil Code, particularly as a means to achieve gender parity.

The promise in the party’s 2014 manifesto to increase spending on education to 6% of GDP by 2019 does not feature in the current manifesto. The 2014 promise to build an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in every state also finds no mention, instead of which the party promises to ensure that there is one medical college for every three parliamentary constituencies.

The 2014 manifesto promise of dedicated women Industrial Training Institutes and small manufacturing enterprises in every district is also absent from the 2019 manifesto.

The 2014 manifesto had promised a ban on foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail, which was upturned when the government allowed 100% FDI in single-brand retail in 2014. The current manifesto promises creation of welfare board for small traders.

Congress
The Congress will get investigated several deals entered into by the BJP government in the last five years, in particular the Rafale deal.

The party will introduce a ‘Diversity Index’ to assess and ensure diversity in all government bodies, semi-government agencies, public sector enterprises and other public bodies.

It also promises to pass an ‘Anti-Discrimination Law’ to prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion, caste, gender or language in the supply of goods and services made available to the general public, such as housing, hostels, hotels and clubs.

The party will introduce a ‘Nyuntam Aay Yojana’ (NYAY) to ensure an income of Rs 72,000 a year to the 50 million families that constitute the poorest 20% families in India in order to eliminate abject poverty by 2030. The money will be transferred into the bank account of a woman in the family.

Newer issues
The Congress and the CPI-M have introduced some issues in their manifestos that are not featured in the BJP’s or any other parties’ manifestos.

LGBT rights
The Congress promises to ensure the effective implementation of the ruling in the Navtej Singh Johar case as the next steps are towards legalising same-sex marriage. If voted to power, the Congress promises to immediately withdraw the Transgender Bill of 2018 that is pending in Parliament. Instead, it aims to introduce a Bill consistent with the judgment in the case in order to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual (LGBTQIA) rights.
The CPI-M has also promised legal recognition and protection to same-sex couples similar to marriage–a ‘civil union’, ’same-sex-partnership’–through legislation on the lines of the Special Marriage Act 1954. This aims to ensure that partners can be listed as dependents for the purposes of inheritance, alimony, etc. Legislation will also ensure that crimes against LGBT persons are treated on par with crimes against non-LGBT persons. The BJP manifesto has no mention of these groups.

Workers’ rights
The Congress will ensure that notified minimum wages are paid to workers in the unorganised sector. It will ratify ILO (International Labour Organization) Convention 87 (Freedom of Association) and ILO Convention 98 (Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining).

The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, will be implemented.

The CPI-M has also promised to discourage contractualisation and casualisation of work through stringent implementation of the Contract Labour (Regulation And Abolition) Act; payment of equal wages and benefits to contract workers and regular workers who do the same and similar work; and stopping outsourcing and contractorisation of jobs of a permanent and perennial nature.

Protecting the media and battling fake news
The Congress will pass a law to curb monopolies in the media, cross-ownership of different segments of the media and control of the media by other business organisations. It will work with state governments to formulate rules to require the police to extend protection to journalists working in conflict areas or investigating matters of public interest and to journalists whose lives are threatened or otherwise in danger. It will amend the Press Council of India Act to empower the council to deal with fake news and paid news.

Revoking Aadhaar?
The Congress promises to amend the Aadhaar Act of 2016 to restrict the use of Aadhaar to subsidies, benefits and services provided by the government as was originally intended under the law.

The CPI-M has said it will scrap Aadhaar and biometric verification for all social welfare measures, and will delink Aadhaar for the public distribution system (PDS is a government-sponsored chain of shops entrusted with the work of distributing basic food and non-food commodities to the needy sections of the society at subsidised prices).

Scrapping laws
Both the Congress and the CPI-M have promised to remove or amend certain laws that they say have been used to quell opposition.

Both parties have promised to omit Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code and make ‘defamation’ a civil offence; and to omit Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code that defines the offence of ‘sedition’.
The parties also propose to amend the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958. The Congress manifesto states it will amend the laws that allow for detention without trial “in order to bring them in accord with the spirit, and not just the letter, of the Constitution as well as International Human Rights Conventions”.

The Congress has also promised to pass a Prevention of Torture Act to prohibit the use of third-degree methods during custody or interrogation and to punish cases of torture, brutality and other police excesses.

(Salve is a senior analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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The central government’s decision to not release the report of the Annual Employment Survey for 2017-18 allegedly precipitated the resignation of PC Mohanan, the acting head of the National Statistical Commission (NSC)–which is tasked to “evolve policies, priorities and standards in statistical matters”–on January 29, 2018.

The NSC had approved the report of the Annual Employment Survey for 2017-18, which the government has not released, Mohanan was reported to have told the newspaper Mint as one of the reasons for his resignation.

Many commentators questioned the government’s motives for not releasing the jobs data.

“The Indian government’s withholding of the National Sample Survey employment/ unemployment report, which is expected to reflect job losses, undermines the ability of the electorate to make informed decisions,” Sabina Dewan, president and executive director of JustJobs Network, a research organisation focussed on strategies for job creation & workforce development, told IndiaSpend, adding, “A functional democracy is premised on an informed electorate.”

“The main issue here can be demonetisation,” Jayati Ghosh, a development economist and professor of economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, told IndiaSpend. “By doing this the government is making an effort to show itself in a good light.”

Lack of data prevents central and state governments from making informed decisions, Ghosh said, adding that it similarly affects citizens who need to plan for their savings, investments and other issues.

It creates economic opacity that prevents businesses and investors from making good decisions, Dewan said, and prevents NGOs and other development-oriented organisations from doing their work in an evidence-based manner. “How are we to hold government accountable if they control and censure information that should be publicly accessible?” she said, “We risk going down a very slippery slope if government withholds such data that should help in determining the policies that will actually help address the jobs crisis.”

The government issued a statement on January 30, 2019, saying the NSC members who had resigned–Mohanan and agricultural economist JV Meenakshi–had not raised their concerns at any of the NSC meetings. “NSSO is processing the quarterly data for the period July 2017 to December 2018 and the report will be released thereafter,” it added.
 

Source: IndiaSpend research

The accidents and suicides report, which provides information on farmer suicides and is brought out by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), has not been released for four years now. “The Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India 2016 will be published in the third or last week of December,” an NCRB official was reported to have told News18 in December 2017.

“We are constantly being told that the data is missing but it is not true because NCRB continues to collect data,” Ghosh sid, “The data is only suppressed.”

Data on foreign direct investment, brought out every quarter by the department of industrial policy and production (DIPP), have not been released since June 2018, despite the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) providing it with regular inputs, according to this Business Today report published on January 29, 2019.

When the central government released the socio-economic profile of the population generated through the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) in 2015, it withheld data on caste despite demands from opposition parties and ministers within the government, this report in The Economic Times said in September 2018. The government blamed the delay on the enormity of the task due to India’s size and population; for instance, Census enumerators had covered 330 million households and drawn up 4.6 million entries, which needed 355 12-hour workdays to read, according to this Hindustan Times report from July 2015.

“All surveys should be put into the public domain so that researchers and analysts can examine and critique the data quality and also generate additional analyses that can serve the policy community,” Purnima Menon, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, told IndiaSpend. The National Family Health Survey and the National Sample Survey, for instance, can be downloaded directly from the websites, she said. “It’s fantastic to see the various data and research outputs generated from these,” she added.

Citizens deserve to know whether major economic reforms such as demonetisation and introduction of the Goods and Services Tax have had an impact on employment, Dewan added. “A lack of information, or withholding information that is available, allows speculation and misunderstandings to persist,” she said, “The jobs discourse is rife with speculation and misunderstandings. In part because of the lack of reliable and systematic data collection on jobs. Why then should we not release the data that is available?”

Recently, there have also been concerns raised over data going missing from the websites of centrally-sponsored schemes. For example, several sets of data were removed from the Swachh Bharat-Gramin website, including data on expenditure, conversion of insanitary toilets which foster manual scavenging, and several details of toilet construction, as IndiaSpend reported on October 6, 2018.

The report of a Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey–started towards the end of 2016 to create comprehensive nutritional profiles of preschoolers (0-4 years), school-age children (5-14 years) and adolescents (15-19 years)–has been ready but not released. The report would help reorient India’s nutrition policy and serve as a baseline to evaluate the progress of recently launched initiatives such as the Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (‘national adolescent health programme’), Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (‘national child health programme’) and the National Iron-Plus Initiative.

“Many countries and organisations are moving towards public release of surveys, and this is good practice because the research community can really contribute to the knowledge base when the data is publicly available,” Menon said.

If the government is not releasing the report because of quality concerns or other methodological concerns, it should say so, Dewan said. “At the very least, the public, experts and even other policymakers that can use this information to make informed decisions, deserve an explanation,” Dewan added.

(Salve is a senior analyst with IndiaSpend. With additional inputs from Jasmin Nihalani, a student of journalism and mass communication, and an intern with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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Sustained high economic growth since the early 1990s has led to improved education and health indicators among India’s women. Yet, women accounted for no more than 25% of the labour force in 2011-12, declining from 33% in 2005, according to national sample survey report (2014) on employment, a rate worse than neighbouring Bangladesh (29%), Nepal (52%) and Sri Lanka (34%), IndiaSpend reported on May 4, 2017

But this decline is more marked for rural women, according to data from the ministry of statistics and programme implementation’s National Sample Survey (NSS), 2014.

The aspirations of rural women, increasingly educated and exposed to paid labour opportunities under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (MGNREGS), have shifted away from unpaid agricultural work on family farms toward more formal, paid work.

There are, however, not enough formal sector jobs available in rural areas. MGNREGS, a labour demand-driven programme, is limited to providing only 100 days of paid labour on public works projects per year. The few paid, formal jobs available, besides MGNREGS, tend to go to men and women with degrees, leaving women educated till the secondary school level in limbo–with skills that qualify them for non-agricultural work, but with few such jobs available, according to a 2018 study by the University of Maryland.

This lack of formal jobs, coupled with shrinking availability of agricultural work, has led to declining numbers of women in the rural workforce.

Labour force participation rate (LFPR) is a measure of the number of persons in the labour force per 1,000 persons. The NSS data recording the change in female LFPR in rural and urban areas over 18 years to 2011 show that the female LFPR has declined in both.

However, a closer look at the NSS data shows that the decline is steeper in rural areas. Whereas female LFPR in urban areas has declined from 165 per 1,000 in 1993 to 155 in 2011, in rural areas the female LFPR has fallen from 330 to 253 over the same period.

Fewer agricultural work opportunities are partly responsible for this decline. The size of agricultural landholdings has shrunk with concomitant divisions within families, according to agricultural data.

The average farm size fell from 1.23 hectares in 2000-01 to 1.15 hectares in 2010-11, according to the ministry of agriculture’s Agricultural Census 2011. Increasing mechanisation has also possibly led to a decline in the demand for agricultural wage labour, according to a 2018 joint study by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and the University of Maryland.

Decline is greater in lower income classes
The decline in labour force participation among rural women is also greater among the lower income sections, NSS data show. The first three income classes–representing the lowest earners in rural India–have the lowest female workforce population ratio (WPR) (defined as the number of people who are currently employed per 1000 of the population), according to NSS data. The lowest representation of 198 per 1,000 females is in the third lowest income class of 20%-30%, while the highest of 288 is in the third highest income class of 70%-80%.

The increasing workforce population ratio is higher income classes in rural India clearly indicates rural women’s changed aspirations towards more formal, paid work. Where alternatives for remunerative employment are provided, such as by MGNREGS, rural women prefer these over unpaid labour, according to a 2015 study conducted by the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad for the NITI Aayog. The decline in female WPR in the lower income classes may be attributed to a number of factors, the study said. Increased income may have led to women withdrawing from distress employment, preferring instead to do family farm work. Some formal sector work done by women in lower income rural families is also going unrecorded. For instance, women and girls contribute labour to the recorded wages earned by male relatives, particularly in jobs such as construction work, the study added.  

Better education not leading to increased employment
One of the main factors identified as hindering women’s participation in the workforce is low education.

With education levels improving with incentives for female education, higher levels of literacy (22% in 1983 to 55% in 2011) and primary education (10% in 2005 to 17% in 2011) have been recorded among women in rural areas, according to NSS data.

However, better education is not leading to increased employment for rural women. The NSS data on workforce population rates by education level show a decline in the WPR despite increased education levels among rural women.

Increases in education–from none to completed secondary school (up to class 12)–are associated with a decline in women’s participation in the rural labour force, from 53.3% to 22.4%.

The WPR drops with rise in education levels: From 445 per 1,000 rural women who are not literate to 121 for women who have completed secondary education and above.

While most girls in rural India have received primary education, secondary school enrolment has also increased. This may account for the withdrawal of younger women of secondary school-going age from the rural workforce.

For women beyond this age–from 20-64 years–school enrolment is not a factor in work participation. The decline in WPR for rural women, however, affects women at all ages, the NSS data show. This suggests a deeper problem than that implied by the trade-off between the time spent in school and the time spent working.

For women past secondary school-going age, workforce population has increased for urban women, while it has declined for rural women, reflecting the greater availability of formal jobs in urban areas.

Among rural women, only women with higher educational qualifications are finding non-agricultural jobs. Beyond secondary school-going age, the decline in women’s workforce population ratio is not as much as it is for women with intermediate education.

Up to 28.1% of rural women who are college graduates are employed, according to a 2018  study by the University of Maryland. “Educated women look mainly for better quality jobs, especially salaried work,” said the study. “The inference might be that if all or most available jobs were salaried, Indian women would show the usual positive relationship of higher rates of employment with more education.”

“However, such jobs are limited and are accessible mainly with higher levels of education,” said the study. “If appropriate jobs were available for women with intermediate levels of education, we might expect higher levels of their labor force participation.”

Improved transport infrastructure increases rural women’s work participation
Most salaried jobs are in the cities, towns and big villages. Hence, availability of transport and allied infrastructure has an impact on women’s participation in the workforce, according to a 2017 study by University of Maryland that looked at data from India Human Development Survey (IHDS) rounds of 2004-05 and 2011-12, jointly conducted by the University of Maryland and NCAER.

“The conditions of transportation infrastructure have also changed dramatically during the survey interval, particularly because of the strong push by the central government through the PMGSY [Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana],” the study said. “Many more villages were accessible by kutcha (unpaved) and pucca (paved) roads in 2012 than in 2005. The percentage [of villages] with “no road access” dropped from 6% to 1% during the seven-year interval.”

“Regarding the frequency of bus service, the percentage of villages with no bus services also dropped from 47% in 2005 to 38% in 2012,” said the study. “More villages had bus services one to six times a day in 2012 than in 2005, but slightly fewer villages had bus services seven times or more a day in 2012 compared to 2005.”

The IHDS surveys found that the construction of either a kutcha or a pucca road increased the odds of women’s participation in non-farm work by 1.5 and 1.4 times, respectively. Their gains were higher than that of men, who also benefited from road construction by 1.2 times for kutcha roads and 1.4 times for pucca roads, according to the study, reflecting the long-standing gender gap in employment. With men outnumbering women in the workforce, more women than men stand to gain from improved transport infrastructure.

The non-agricultural employment rate has also increased significantly for both men and women over the seven years to 2012, though the rate has remained much lower among women than among men. Only 10% of women participated in non-agricultural work in 2005, wḣich increased to 17% in 2012. The non-agricultural employment rate for men increased from 47% in 2005 to 55% in 2012.

MGNREGS work increases market wages for men, but not women
Another factor that has had an impact on women’s workforce participation is the MGNREGS. IHDS data suggest that fewer (46%) women reported having ‘no work’ in 2011-12 than in 2004-05 (50%). The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act was enacted in 2005.

More women (9%) reported being engaged in non-farm work than the 6% involved in farm work from 2004-05 to 2011-12, according to the IHDS data. This suggests that the expansion of opportunities due to MGNREGS draws those women into paid labour who might have otherwise continued to work only on family farms. Further, research on IHDS data shows that nearly 45% of women MGNREGS workers worked as unpaid labour on family farms during the first wave of IHDS in 2004-05.

Higher allocation of MGNREGS work has been found to raise market wages (for formal work beyond MGNREGS) for male MGNREGS workers, but a similar increase is not statistically significant for women, according to a 2018 study by the NCAER. This underscores the gender bias in access to formal work. Where formal jobs beyond MGNREGS become available in rural areas, these go mostly to male MGNREGS workers, leaving women MGNREGS workers restricted to the informal sector.

(Salve is a senior policy analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

The post Why Rural Women Are Falling Out Of India’s Workforce At Faster Rates Than Urban Women appeared first on SabrangIndia.

IndiaSpend compared Rajasthan’s indicators on health, agriculture, unemployment with 11 other states, using diverse sources, such as the National Family Health Survey (NFHS),  National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) and Niti Aayog. We picked these 12 states for their size and development: Punjab, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala.  

At 7.2%, Rajasthan’s gross state domestic product (GSDP) growth in 2017-18 was higher than the national GDP growth of 6.7%. However, it ranks eighth in our 12-state list. (table below)

Agriculture, industry prospered but employment fell
Rajasthan’s agriculture output grew 23% from Rs 119,103 crore ($24 billion) in 2011-12 to Rs 145,948 crore ($23 billion), as the table below shows. Compared to the 11 states we analysed, Rajasthan ranked fifth, with Madhya Pradesh registering the highest growth (67%) over the last eight years. However, under the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, led by chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia, agricultural output grew only by 9% between 2013-14 and 2017-18.

Further, the state’s secondary sector, including manufacturing, construction and electricity, grew by 28%, and the services sector by 40%, according to 2017-18 data from ministry of statistics and programme implementation.

However, this growth has not been able to propel employment. Unemployment–usually underestimated in official data–in Rajasthan increased from 1.7% in 2011-12 to 7.1% in 2015-16, according to the labour bureau data. In 2011-12, rural unemployment was 1.6% but it rose to 7.7% in 2015-16. The unemployment rate in urban areas increased from 2% to 4.3% over the same period.

Infant, under-five and maternal mortality are yet to be controlled
On health indices, Rajasthan ranks fourth in NITI Aayog rankings (which are based on health outcomes, governance and information and key inputs and processes). But its infant and under-five mortality rank third worst in our analysis. This is despite the fact that infant mortality declined from 65 deaths per 1,000 births in 2005-06 to 43 in 2015-16 and under-five mortality fell from 85 to 50 over the same period. The national average for these is 41 and 49, respectively, according to sample registration survey data of 2015-16.

The state does well compared to the national average for institutional births–it enjoys an average of 84% while the national average is 78.9%. Its record for antenatal care (82.7%) too exceeds the national average of 79.3%.

Maternal health remains a concern in the state–its maternal mortality rate (MMR) stands at 199 deaths per 100,000 live births, the third highest in the country. The state’s sex ratio, 973 per 1,000 boys, ranks fifth among the 12 states in our analysis. It also ranks fourth lowest in vaccination coverage–54.8%.

More health facilities, but they are plagued by shortages
Rajasthan’s primary healthcare infrastructure improved since 2005-06, but it has yet to deal with vacancies. Access and power supply to these facilities, too, remain inadequate.  
 

Source: Rural Health Statistics 2017 and National Family Health Survey 2015-16
*refers to 2010, #refers to 2014-15, ^refers to 2015-16

The number of sub-centres increased by 25%, primary health centres by 36% and community health centres by 57% between 2010-11 and 2017-18, according to rural health statistics 2017. However, this increase in the health facilities has not seen an equal increase in medical health professionals and adjoining infrastructure.

For example, the number of primary health centres functioning without a doctor has gone up from 70 in 2010-11 to 167 in 2017-18. The number of sub-centres without an auxiliary nurse or female health worker increased from 328 in 2010-11 to 1,775 in 2017-18.
The lack of physical infrastructure has also risen–sub centres without regular water supply increased from none in 2010-11 to 10% in 2017-18, while the PHCs without all-weather motorable approach road went from none to 8% over the same time period, according to rural health statistics of 2010-11 and 2017-18.  

Poor ratings in women’s literacy, employment  
Women’s education indicators could explain the state’s poor ratings in children’s health and maternal health: States with more educated women show better health outcomes for children, as IndiaSpend reported on March 20, 2017.

The table above shows that in Rajasthan, women’s literacy and participation in the economy are low. The state ranks second lowest in women’s literacy–56.5% to the national average of 68.4%, according the 2015-16 NFHS. It is last in the list of women who have completed 10-11 years of education.  

Female participation in the labour force is 21.5%, lower than the national average of 23.7%.   

(Salve is a programme manager at IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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For instance, Mizoram, India’s third-most-literate state, was fastest in moving central money for education to implementing agencies, within 30 days; Goa, India’s fourth-most-literate state, was fastest in moving money from state agencies to schools, within 30 days, according to a 2017 Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report.

35 states/UTs did not spend Rs 10,681cr (($1.53bn)  in 2010, rising to Rs 14,113cr ($2.15bn) in 2016 under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA or Education For All), leading to lower enrolments, fewer classrooms & more teachers in government schools, said the CAG report.
SSA funds not spent by states in 2015-16, Rs 14,113 crore, were equivalent to 67% of Kerala’s education budget for 2018-19.

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, provides that all children in the age group of 6-14 years have the right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school till the completion of their elementary education.

SSA, a central government programme, is the main vehicle for implementing the Act. The SSA was revised in March 2011 to correspond to the RTE Act and state RTE rules.

Unspent SSA money rose 24%, from Rs 10,680 crore in 2010-11 to Rs 14,112 crore in 2015-16, the highest being Rs 17,281 crore in 2014-15, although the proportion of funds not utilised fell.

One reason for higher unspent balance of funds was the delay in moving the money,  from centre to state to nodal department to various implementing authorities in districts, blocks and schools. The delay in fund transfers from state government to implementing agency ranged from 373 days in Nagaland to 30 days in Mizoram. Fund transfers took longer from state agencies to district agencies and schools, from 300 days in Arunachal Pradesh to 30 days in Goa.

As many as nine states and union territories (Andhra Pradesh, Daman & Diu, Delhi, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh & Nagaland) did not spend money on research, evaluation, monitoring and supervision, the shortfalls ranging from 9% (Gujarat) to 65% (Jharkhand).

In Odisha, headmasters withdraw money for infrastructure, retire without spending
SSA funds were diverted to other programmes by states, the CAG report said.

For example, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh diverted SSA funds of Rs 8.95 crore and Rs 5.30 crore, respectively, to the National Programme for Education of Girls at Elementary Level.

The CAG survey also found misappropriation of funds in districts; for example, Odisha–where the literacy rate is 73%–reported Rs1.04 crore as withdrawn and retained by 58 headmasters, without executing 80 infrastructure works allotted to them. Out of those 58 headmasters, 14 retired, four expired and two absconded while 38 were continuing in service.

The RTE Act demands that local authorities  maintain a record of all children in their jurisdiction through an annual household survey from their birth till age 14 . The CAG found that 21 states and union territories had not maintained any such records or conducted any such surveys between 2010-2016.

The survey contains information on the number of children up to age 14, children in school and out of school. The lack of information has impacted the quality of data used by the education ministry to create the District Information System for Education (DISE), a database of information about schools in India, the CAG report said.

Net enrolment ratio declines
Net enrolment ratio (NER), or the number of children enrolled to the population of children of official school age, in primary schools declined between 2012-13 and 2015-16, according to the CAG report.

Since the NER relates to children  enrolled in schools within the official school-age range, it should never exceed 100%. However, NERs in excess of 100% were reported by six states which raises question on the data and the claims of governments on RTE achievement, the CAG report said.

The least retention rate (calculated as enrolment in grade V in a year as a proportion of enrolment in grade I four years ago) was in Mizoram primary schools,  where 36% stayed in school, and in Maharashtra in upper primary schools, where no more than 15% stayed in school in 2015-16.

The DISE data was incomplete, and the retention rate was computed without data of all the states, the CAG report said.

The retention rate at government-run schools was “poor” compared to all other management schools according to the CAG report.

More teachers than classrooms
To avoid single-teacher schools, the RTE Act says primary schools with up to 60 students should have two teachers. As the number of students rise, so too must the number of teachers: 40 teachers are prescribed for schools with more than 200 students.

The CAG observed that in 11 states, these rules were not  implemented. For example, in Bihar, the pupil-teacher ratio (PTR, pupils per teacher, set at 30:1 fore primary schools and 35:1 in upper primary) in primary  and upper-primary government schools was 50:1 and 61:1, respectively, during 2012-16.

As many as 3,269 primary schools (8%) and 127 upper primary schools (1%) had a single teacher in Bihar.

In Rajasthan, 11,071 primary schools (29%) and 365 upper primary schools (2%) had a single teacher in 2012-16, compared to the norm of two and three teachers.

The number of schools with more teachers than classrooms increased from 894,329 in 2012-13 to 958,820 in 2015-16, an increase of 7%. This means that while 62% schools in 2012-13 had more than one teacher in a class, this increased to 66% schools in 2015-16.

The education ministry told the CAG (January 2017) that 1.7 million classrooms had been constructed since 2000-01, but the CAG report said there were 900,000 schools with an unfavourable teacher-classroom ratio as of March 2016.

No teacher shall be deployed for any non-educational purposes, except for decennial population census, disaster relief duties or duties relating to elections to the local authority, state legislatures or Parliament, according to the RTE Act. The CAG found teachers in nine states deployed for non-educational purposes such as personal assistants of public representatives like collectors, revision of electoral rolls, working as staff members in district administration offices. For example, in Assam, in three out of four districts, 1,559 elementary teachers were engaged in updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) during 2014-15.

(Salve is a programme manager at IndiaSpend.)
 

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The NHM, launched in 2005, is India’s largest health programme aimed at providing universal access to healthcare. One of its primary missions is to improve maternal and child health and control communicable and non-communicable diseases.
 
Data show why it is critical that NHM funds be used optimally: India still accounts for 17% of global burden of maternal deaths, non-communicable diseases made for 61% of deaths in 2016, communicable diseases like leprosy and malaria are yet to be controlled and 55 million Indians slipped into poverty in 2011-12 because of health catastrophes they could not afford.
 
NHM also disburses funds to state health societies to help strengthen local health systems, institutions and capabilities. Rural health centres in India are short of human resources and infrastructure, as Indiaspend reported on January 30, 2018. Sub-centres were 20% short of human resources, 29% of them did not have regular water supply, 26% lacked electricity supply and 11% were not connected by all-weather roads.
 
India ranks lower than neighbouring Bangladesh and even sub-Saharan Sudan and Equatorial Guinea on healthcare access, we reported on May 23, 2018. And it spends 1.4% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health, the least among BRICS nations.
 
In a two-part series, we look at the government auditor’s assessment of NHM’s functioning. In part one, we report on instances of financial mismanagement. The concluding part will detail the shortfalls in infrastructure and medical staff caused by this mismanagement.
 
The government has denied charges of financial irregularity. Funds were being released as soon as states fulfilled the requirements for their allocation, according to Manoj Jhalani, additional secretary and mission director, NHM.
 
“The diversion of NHM funds for non-NHM purposes/state government schemes is never supported by the ministry,” he said. “If any such instance comes to (our) notice, the same is recovered from the concerned state government, and states are directed to desist from such practice.”
 
Delayed transfers, misallocation and a growing balance
Our analysis of the CAG audit highlighted the following problems in the disbursement and usage of health funds:

18 states spent only 32% of allocation which was already 36% short
In 18 states, against a requirement of Rs 133 crore, reflected in the 2013-16 state programme implementation plans, only 64% was allocated, we found. But states were not able to utilise even the allocated amount, with no more than 32% or Rs 43 crore spent.
 
“There are a number of reasons for unspent funds, ranging from the lack of human resources to complicated procedures for procurement in construction-related activities,” said Avani Kapur, fellow at the Centre for Policy Research and Director of the Accountability Initiative. “Another key factor is the uncertainty in the timing and amount of funds received under the scheme. There is often a mismatch in the what the state/district administration demands and what is actually approved and received.”
 
NHM is funded by both the central government and the states, with the centre providing 60%. The ministry of health and family welfare used to release funds directly to the state health societies till 2013-14. The money is now sent to state governments, which then move it to the societies.
 
The state-level societies in turn, disburse the funds to district health societies for further release to blocks. From here, the money goes to various implementing units such as community and primary health centres and sub-centres and village health sanitation nutrition committees.
 
NHM funds are released in five parts: NRHM Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) Flexipool, National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) Flexipool and Flexipool for Communicable Diseases and Non-communicable Diseases, including injury and trauma and infrastructure maintenance.
 
“One of the reasons for the creation of these (state health) societies was that the unspent money gets carried over to the next year unlike the state treasury which has to return unutilised funds at the end of the financial year,” said Kapur.
 
There are significant delays in the receipt of funds as CAG reported too, she said. “Given that states/districts have to prioritise routine activities such as salaries and Janani Suraksha Yojana payouts, there is an incentive to not spend money till the funds reach specifically (for certain projects),” she said. “Our research has thus shown that a lot of the softer expenses such as IEC (information, education, communication) or training often remained neglected.”
 
There are other problems with central sponsorship of schemes like NHM. Item-wise budgeting means that states do not have the flexibility to spend as per need, said Kapur. “I have heard the case of Himachal Pradesh where ASHAs (accredited social health activists) were not needed at one time but had to be hired because of NHM norms,” she said. “Under the new norms of the 14th finance commission, there is a provision wherein 25% of the funding is completely untied. (I) haven’t yet seen how states have operationalised this though.”
 
Unspent funds ranged from 40% to 76%, Meghalaya spent least
 
State health societies had spent only Rs 1,06,180 crore ($ 20.7 billion) of the Rs 1,10,930 crore ($ 17.1 billion) available during 2011-16. In some states the unspent balance ranged between 40% to 76% — for example, in 2015-16, in Meghalaya it was 76% and in UP, 52%.

 
Source: Comptroller and Auditor General of India
 
The table above shows the unspent balance without interest and with interest (as mandated by the NRHM guidelines). In 2011-12, the unspent balance available with 27 state health societies without interest was Rs 5253 crore ($ 1.02 billion) which came down to Rs 3686 crore ($ 555 million) in 2015-16. However, over the same period, the unspent balance, including interest, with 27 states increased from Rs 7375 crore ($1.44 billion) to Rs 9509 crore($1.43 billion) .
 
Defaulting state are not being penalised, as procedure requires
States that do not spend the money given to them must be penalised, according to procedure laid out by the Union Cabinet and applicable from 2014-15.
 
State governments had to release the money to state health societies within 15 days of receiving it, and if they failed to do so state governments were liable to pay interest — 5.75% to 7.25%, depending on the going bank deposit rate.
 
The audit observed that Rs 49 crore released during 2014-15 and Rs 450 crore released during 2015-16 under Mission Flexipool and RCH Flexipool to state treasuries were not transferred to state health societies as of May 2016.
 
When asked to explain, the ministry told CAG that from time to time states had been asked to ensure timely release of funds to health societies. However, the CAG observed that the ministry had no answer when it was asked about action taken against defaulting states.
 
Operational guidelines for the funds also provide for money to be used for only specific targets. In six states (Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Telangana and Tripura), Rs 36 crore was diverted to other schemes as mentioned earlier. The ministry admitted to CAG that it had not acted properly in diverting NRHM funds for non-NRHM purposes.
 
For the period 2011-15, utilisation certificates (UCs) of Rs 4,283crore, under Mission Flexipool, were pending in 22 states/UTs. Under RCH Flexipool, UCs of Rs 3,175 crore were pending from 21 states/UTs as of May 2016.
 
‘Poor data management’
“Data management processes are under NHM are very poor, we have also found that data is often poorly maintained,” said Kapur who has authored the budget study on the NHM. “The inability to maintain data management systems has a consequence on planning for the next year as well as implementation. UCs need to show utilisation and the failure to submit it has implications for future rounds of fund release.”
 
Lack of staff and high vacancies mean that frontline functionaries have to produce and maintain most records without any clarity on how and when it will be used, Kapur said.
 
In its response to our questions, the ministry of health and family welfare has said that it has already put in place a slew of measures to deal with these problems: regulation of fresh funds, the use of the Public Financial Management System which provides a digital platform for fund management in real time, audit of state funds, training and review of state finance staff and the immediate transfer of funds between state health societies and state treasuries.
 
The central government is also advocating the use of single bank account in state operations so that in order to keep track of unspent funds, according to Jhalani.
 
(This is the first of a two-part series.)
 
Next: Upto 38% Shortfall In Medical Staff At Health Facilities Across India
 
(Salve is an analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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These calculations by the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), an advocacy, were released on June 6, 2018, and based on the official Indian standard for poverty line–a monthly expenditure of Rs 816 in rural areas and Rs 1,000 in urban areas–as per a 2013 report of the erstwhile Planning Commission. The PHFI study used secondary data from National Sample Survey reports and other sources for these estimates.
 
Over 80% of Indians incur OOP–direct payments individuals make to healthcare providers–on healthcare, as per 2011-12 figures cited in the study. It was 60% in 1993-1994. Medicines contributed to more than 67% of OOP healthcare expenditure in 2011-12.
 
In real terms, monthly OOP payments increased by more than 100%–from Rs 26 in 1993-1994 to Rs 54 in 2011-2012.
 
India spends the least on public health among BRICS nations, IndiaSpend reported on May 18, 2017. It ranked 147 among 184 countries, a notch below Pakistan, in this regard. Insurance-based government initiatives have been largely unsuccessful in easing the burden on citizens, the report added.
 
The heavy load of spending on medicines can be explained by a study carried out in Chhattisgarh reported by IndiaSpend on June 13, 2018. An analysis of 1,290 prescriptions from 100 public health facilities across 15 districts showed that only 58% prescribed medicines were available at government pharmacies. This left patients with no option but to buy at higher rates from private pharmacies.
 
The consequence of the inadequate public health system is that India has become the sixth biggest private spender on health among low-middle income nations.
 
About 68% of the Indian population has limited or no access to essential medicines, according to a World Health Organization report. In addition, over the last two decades, the availability of free medicines in public health facilities declined from 31.2% to 8.9% for inpatient care and from 17.8% to 5.9% for outpatient care, according to a 2011 PHFI study.
 

Source: Public Health Foundation of India Study 2018
 
Cancer treatment cost highest
The PHFI study also looked at the disease conditions which contributed the most to the financial burden on households.
 
It found that the treatment of cancers, cardiovascular diseases and injuries–in terms of both outpatient and inpatient care–dominated health expenditures in India. The share of non-communicable diseases–such as cardiovascular problems, diabetes, cancer, mental illness and injuries–in OOP health expenses increased from 31.6% in 1995-1996 to 47.3% in 2004.
 
The survey results suggested that the most common health condition for seeking outpatient care was fever (22.7%) and for inpatient care was childbirth (27.3%).
 
In addition, the study estimated that households incurred the highest monthly OOP spending on cancer (Rs 5,121), in the case of both outpatient and in-patient care. This is followed by injuries in outpatient care (Rs 3,045) and cardiovascular events in inpatient care (Rs 2,808).
 
Two earlier studies–the PLOS study of 2013, and the World Bank study of 2014–too had reported that households incurred significant OOP payment burden in the case of cardiovascular diseases and cancers.
 
Rise in poverty caused by health expenses in 2011-12

The study calculated the implications of OOP and the part of it spent on medicines for poverty estimates by using three steps:

 
As per these calculations, monthly OOP payments and expenditure on medicines deepened poverty among the poor by Rs 29 and Rs 23, respectively, in 2011-2012. And the percentage of households below the poverty line increased from 4.19% in 1993-1994 to 4.48% in 2011-2012.
 
This rise in poverty was sharper in 2012 than in 2004-2005 and 1993-1994. The headcount ratio of those impoverished due to OOP payments was 3.97% during 1993–1994; this inched up to 4.30% in 2004-2005 and then went up in 2011-2012 to 4.04%, as per the global measure for poverty line ($1 per day).
 
There was an increase of more than 50% in every household’s consumption expenditure in real terms over this period–from Rs 517 to Rs 794.
 
(Salve is an analyst with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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In urban areas, a woman with a graduate degree gets paid Rs 690.68 per day in the transport and storage sector while a man gets 30% more at Rs 902.45. In agriculture, an illiterate woman worker in rural India receives Rs 88.2 per day while an illiterate man receives Rs 128.52, which is 45% more.
 
However, there are some sectors in which women get paid more than men, although by smaller margins. In the construction sector in rural areas, for instance, women (irrespective of the level of education) are paid Rs 322 on average per day while men are paid Rs 279.15, which is Rs 43 or 13% less.
 
In urban areas, in the transport and storage sector, women are paid Rs 455 on average per day, irrespective of the level of education, while men are paid Rs 443 per day–Rs 12 or 2.7% less.
 
The ‘Men and Women in 2017’ report released by the statistics and programme implementation ministry in May 2018 contains data on average daily wages and salaries for men and women aged 15-59 years, arranged by industry and type of work.
 

Source: Men and Women In 2017, Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation
Note: Figures in rupees. Manufacturing 1 includes Food and Beverages, Tobacco, Textiles, Textile Products, and Leather and Footwear; Manufacturing 2 includes Wood and Cork, Pulp, Paper, Paper Products, Printing and Publishing, Coke, Refined Petroleum and Nuclear Fuel, Chemicals and Chemical Products, Rubber and Plastics, Other Non-Metallic Minerals, Basic Metals and Fabricated Metal Products, Machinery, Electrical and Optical Equipment.
 
A graduate woman earns 5.8 times more than an illiterate woman in rural areas while graduate  men earn 3.6 times more than illiterate men. A graduate woman earns nearly four times more than an illiterate woman in urban areas, while graduate men earn nearly three times more than illiterate men.
 
It is interesting to note that the gender wage gap between men and women remains high even after higher education–a graduate woman is paid Rs 609 on average across sectors while a man with a graduate or higher degree will earn Rs 805. Women with graduate or higher degree earn 24% less than their male counterparts.
 
Construction is the highest paying sector for women in rural areas while mining and quarrying is the highest paying sector for men, the data show.
 
In urban areas, men get paid the most in the mining and quarrying sector while women get paid the most in the public sector (such as in electricity, gas and water utilities).
 
As pointed out before, there are some sectors such as transport in rural areas where women get paid more than men–in urban areas, transport and storage pays Rs 11 more to women than men.
 
The Global Wage Report 2016-17 published by the International Labour Organization in 2016 had raised an alarm with the revelation that the gender pay gap in India, at 30%, was among the highest in the world.
 
Women in top management in India earn 18.8% less than men, this 2016 report by the advisory firm Korn Ferry Hay Group had said, blaming the gap on lesser representation of women in senior roles.
 
More generally across the value chain, women in India earn 67% less than men, and the gap will take more than 100 years to close, the advisory Accenture said in this 2017 report based on a global survey.
 
Meanwhile, fewer women are taking part in the paid labour force. In the first four months of 2017, 2.4 million women fell off the employment map, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), a Mumbai-based think-tank, as IndiaSpend reported on August 5, 2017.
 
Among South Asian peers, India in 2013 had the lowest rate of female employment after Pakistan. In roughly two decades preceding 2013, female labour force participation in India fell from 34.8% to 27%, according to an April 2017 report by the World Bank.
 
India ranks 108th among 144 countries on gender equality rankings created by the World Economic Forum for its Global Gender Gap report of 2017. This puts India behind Bangladesh (at 47) and China (at 100).
 
Greater gender equality in a country is associated with better education and health, higher per capita income, faster and more inclusive economic growth, and greater international competitiveness.
 
Closing the gender gap in labour force participation rates would add $12 trillion to global GDP by 2025, a widely cited study by the McKinsey Global Institute had said in 2015.
 
(Salve is an analyst with IndiaSpend.)
 
We welcome feedback. Please write to respond@indiaspend.org. We reserve the right to edit responses for language and grammar.
 

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Mumbai: Hindus have India’s highest infant mortality rate with 41.6 deaths per 1,000 live births and the third highest fertility rate–the average number of children a woman would have by the end of her childbearing years–of 2.13, the latest health data show.
 
Hindus also have the third-lowest access to healthcare facilities, with only 79.3% women receiving antenatal care (including at least one tetanus toxoid injection and iron folic acid tablets or syrup taken for 100 or more days) visits from skilled professionals, lower than Sikhs, Christians, Buddhist and Jains, national family health survey data show.
 
Muslims have India’s highest fertility rate, 2.61 per woman, and the second lowest access to antenatal care provided by skilled professionals (77%).

A “child survival hypothesis” states that if child mortality is reduced, fertility reduction follows, with the net effect of lower growth of population, according to this 1990 study by Finnish Medical Society.
 
Adding a maternity clinic to a village decreases the odds of infant mortality by almost 15% in comparison to the risk before the clinic was added, evidence from a 1995 study in Indonesia show. An additional doctor reduces the odds by about 1.7%.

Though the fertility rate for Hindus is lower than the national average, it is high compared to communities like Christians, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists.
 
While the national average is 2.2 children per woman, Muslims have the highest fertility rate (2.6) followed by others (Jews, Parsis and tribes that do not identify themselves as Hindus like Khasi, Jaintia & Garo in the North east) (2.5) and Hindus (2.1). Meanwhile, Christians (1.9), Sikhs (1.5), Jains (1.2) and Buddhists (1.7) have lower fertility rates.
 
Access to healthcare plays key role
 
As many as 79% of women delivered babies at a health facility; the lowest proportion was among “other religious communities”–which include Jews, Parsis  and tribes that do not identify themselves as Hindus like Khasi, Jaintia & Garo in the North east–(51%) followed by Muslims (69.2%).
 
The national average for receiving antenatal care from skilled providers is 79.3%, while it is the lowest for “other religious communities” (68.5%), followed by Muslims (77%).
 
The lack of access to healthcare facilities also inhibits the usage of modern methods of family planning. For example, the national average for the usage of any modern method of contraception among women is 47.8% while the lowest is among “other religious communities” (36.5%) followed by Muslims (37.9%).
 
Sanitation access and child mortality
 
Access to sanitation is another factor that is known yo have an impact on reducing child mortality rates.
 
“We found  that Muslim neighbourhood are less likely to have piped waters, and less likely to have other state services than Hindu neighbourhoods,” Dean Spears of the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics, told IndiaSpend in an interview on August 13,2017.
 
“But, on average, there is less open defecation in Muslim neighbourhoods because they are more likely to have and use latrines than Hindu households.”
 
Indirect factors that impact fertility rate includes higher education of women to employment status among women, research show.
 
Women from “other smaller religious groups” and Muslims have the highest percentage of women with no schooling at 34.4% and 31.4%, respectively.
 
The two communities also have the lowest percentage of women who have completed schooling of more than 12 years at 10.9% and 14.8%, respectively.

 
Note: Others includes Jews, Parsis and tribes that do not identify themselves as Hindus, such as Khasi, Jaintia & Garo in the North east.
 
Only 73% Muslim women participate in decision-making pertaining to one’s own health while the all-India average is 74.5%.
 
Muslim women in rural and urban areas had the lowest labour force participation rate at 15.9% and 10.9%, respectively, while the national average was 25.3% and 15.5%, respectively.
 

This article was first published on indiaspend.com.

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