New Delhi: A recent study has suggested that introducing more women into the workforce in India could potentially make the country 27% richer. While encouraging and retaining women in the workforce is highlighted in public discourse, a new research paper has found that more women in India are travelling within the country, principally for economic reasons and better employment prospects, a report in the Indian Express said.
The trend, accompanied by a decrease in the ratio of adult male migrants, has reportedly been on the rise in rural and urban areas over the past three decades.
Titled ‘Mobility in India, Recent Trends and Issues Concerning Database’, the paper has been authored by professor Amitabh Kundu, distinguished fellow at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries, taking into account the 64th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS). This is the most recent of surveys which provides latest data on migration. The research paper has also drawn from data in the 2011 Census and the National Health and Family Survey IV.
The Indian Express quoted Kundu as saying, “Women migration for economic reasons has gone up as revealed through NSS data, which classifies migrants by reasons of mobility. The urban labour market is offering employment opportunities to women though at the bottom of the economic ladder. A large percentage of them work as domestic help whose demand has gone up with the increase in work participation rate among middle and upper-class women.”
According to the report, female migration was 38.2% in urban areas in 1993 (49th NSS round). Fifteen years later, in 2008, (64th NSS round), female migration stood at 45.6%. When it came to men, it reportedly increased from 23.9% to 25.9% over the same period. According to the paper, “evidence in the NSS to suggest that migration of women has gone up over the past three decades both in rural and urban areas. Marriage mobility of women is determined by socio-cultural factors that change slowly over time and hence the spurt in their migration rate must be attributed to economic factors.”
“There are other macro-level indicators that also confirm the above proposition. National Health and Family Survey IV, for example, shows that the percentage of women aged 20-24 married before the age of 18 has gone down from 47 in 2005-06 to 27 only in 2015-16. Furthermore, women aged 15-19 already mothers or pregnant at the time of the survey has become half from the alarming figure of 16 per cent in 2005-06,” the paper says. “It would, therefore, be no surprise if women work participation and their mobility for economic reasons show a happy rising trend. This conclusion can also be derived easily from the 2011 Census data on migration.”
“It would, therefore, be no surprise if women work participation and their mobility for economic reasons show a happy rising trend. This conclusion can also be derived easily from the 2011 Census data on migration.”
The Indian Express report further quoted Kundu as saying, “Also, single male migration driven by poverty and other push factors has gone down. There is an increase in family migration at higher income and skill levels, which improves the gender ratio among the migrants.”
Other issues Kundu has raised in the study include how towns have changed over the last several decades. Interestingly, the study also looks at how the 2017 Economic Survey used railway journey details to collect data on migration – which the author says lends credence to the view that migration has accelerated, even though other data do not support this conclusion.
The share of women in India’s workforce has fallen dramatically – from about 35% to 25% since 2004. The fall is even sharper if one looks at women in the age group of 15-24. According to a report of the International Labour Organisation, India’s female labour force participation rate fell from 35.8% in 1994 to merely 20.2% in 2012. It has fallen for other age groups as well. For female wage workers, as against self-employed or casual workers, the participation rate is in single digits.