BENGALURU: Women’s day is to pay respect to all the women and remind the world of how women’s significance. In spite of all efforts and campaigns, India still lags behind in women workforce. Women job holders in India are far behind in number if compared to all the BRICS nations. Countries like Bahrain, Malaysia and Somalia are leading India, reports Rediff.com.

The Work Participation Rate (WPR) for women in 2011 was 25.5 percent, among which WPR for rural woman was 30 percent and for the urban women it was only 15.4 percent. The actual number of women workforce declined from 106 million to 104 million over 11 years. Economist Vinoj Abraham wrote in a report, “Those who do enter and remain in the labor market are women from the most vulnerable households, as marginalized informal paid labor, thus feminizing the most precarious forms of labor in the country.”

The decreasing rate of women in the workforce may be due to many dropping out of education. The majority of rural female workforce in India works in agriculture sector (80 percent), followed by manufacturing (7.5 percent), construction (5.2 percent) and services (7 percent).

In the urban areas, women are mostly in service sectors and industries. Engineering and automobile sectors engage least number of female workers, 16 percent and 18 percent respectively. The highest numbers of urban women are working in pharmaceuticals and healthcare, which is 42.5 percent. Most shockingly one third of urban women workers are illiterate.

Few of the urban working women are engaged in services like public administration, health, education, domestic works followed by trade and manufacturing. Gender discrimination is a big factor prevailing in India, which leads women engaging in stereotypical nursing and sewing courses. While 73 percent of women are enrolled in graduation courses, only 27 percent are enrolled in post graduate courses.

The IAMR study said, “The sharp decline in female employment has raised concerns among policy makers regarding gender equality, women empowerment, and women livelihood strategies. Women employment is a critical factor in their economic empowerment and their overall status in society.”

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