Ahead of the Lok Sabha election, the crisis of unemployment unites India as few things do. Why are important sections of India out of work? How do unemployed Indians live? Why is the work available not enough to earn a livelihood? How do Indians secure employment? How long is the wait? With India out of work, The Wire unveils a series that explores one of the most important poll issues of our time.
Nine in ten woman domestic workers are compelled to do additional, unpaid work beyond what they agreed to – work that they estimate is worth between Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 3,000 a month in lost wages.
A third of women MGNREGS workers in Uttarakhand said the work expected from them is so intense that they have to get family members to help, for which, again, there is no payment. In Tamil Nadu, nearly three quarters of women fishworkers said they were doing more work now for the same wage than when they started work. Moreover, all this unpaid labour is on top of the existing unfair burdens of unpaid care work in the home.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty. Photo: Intifada P. Basheer and Azam Abbas
Unsurprisingly, more than two thirds of women workers reported that they feel exhausted every day, and in Delhi 40% of women workers say they get less than six hours of sleep. Where they are able to share the care work in their homes, they do so much more with their girl children than they do with either their spouses or their boy children.
The problem is made worse by shortcomings in public services.
For instance, not being able to access health care quickly and affordably meant that family members are often only treated when they are seriously ill – increasing the likelihood of disability and long recovery periods, which in turn imposes additional burdens on women (public health insurance schemes such as Ayushman Bharat can help reduce hospitalisation expenditures, but do not help with illnesses that do not require hospitalisation).
Similarly, the lack of public day care for children means women workers have to either take their children with them to work or leave them with other women relatives, which also increases their care workload.
The limited supplies available from the public distribution system in most states increase prices and require women to take time out to either access rations or find cheaper supplies. The same is true of fuel, given how expensive cooking gas has become.
All of these factors were worsened by the pandemic, which simultaneously hit family incomes and increased care burdens on women. The weakness of labour law means that workers are unable to resist demands for unpaid work from employers, because they fear for their jobs and often have no effective legal recourse to protect their rights.
These are some of the findings of a study by the Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, conducted across four regions of three states (Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and Delhi).
Using a survey of over 2,500 women, followed by focus group discussions and individual interviews, the study found that unpaid work is a huge burden on women workers – affecting their health and their ability to secure their rights.
The study makes certain policy recommendations that aim to address these key problems. It calls for the expansion of anganwadis, primary health care, and public distribution of food items to reduce the care burden on women workers. The study notes that the MGNREGS, notwithstanding its shortcomings, also provided a framework for women workers to attempt to secure their rights (which was particularly evident in Tamil Nadu). Therefore, it calls for rationalisation of rates under the MGNREGS, the provision of mandatory child care under the scheme (which is already required by law, but often not implemented), redressal of other implementation issues in the MGNREGS.
To address the legal disempowerment of women workers, it recommends a labour law framework for domestic workers rights, registration boards for women workers on the lines of construction welfare boards, and an urban employment guarantee on the same lines as the MGNREGS.
Overall, while recent policies such as laws around sexual harassment and domestic violence have helped protect women in their homes and workplace, the economic and legal disempowerment of women workers has meant they continue to face unfair burdens of unpaid work. The hope is that changes in some key policies can be a start on the path to addressing this problem.
Shankar Gopalakrishnan is a faculty member of the Institute of Social Sciences. Smita Gupta is a consulting advisor to the institute’s research team and an expert on political economy and development issues. The institute is grateful to the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung for supporting this study.