Indian non-profit organisation Oxfam recently released its ‘India Discrimination Report 2022’ with findings that are indicative of strong gender-based gaps in the Indian workforce as a whole. The report’s findings quantify the discrimination the Indian female population faces on a regular basis, both in urban and rural areas and are based on employment and labour data from the Government of India from 2004-05 to 2019-20.
The report indicates that 98 per cent of the employment gap between the salaried male and female population in urban areas is due to gender-based discrimination. Moreover, lower wages for salaried women are caused in 67 per cent of cases due to discrimination and in 33 per cent of instances due to lack of education and work experience. While discrimination is directly indicative of the gender bias prevalent in the country, lack of education and work experience are indirectly indicative of the same. As per a statement to BW Businessworld by Neeti Sharma, President and Co-founder of TeamLease Edtech, a learning solutions company, women in India spend close to 240 minutes a day on domestic and household chores as opposed to a mere 25-minute average duration that men in India spend doing the same. This evidently leaves much less time for the woman in India to work on her skills, education and going after work opportunities, leaving them less employable than their male counterpart.
When it comes to the self-employed population, men earn 2.5 times more than women in urban areas. While men earn an average of ₹15,996, for women the average is ₹6,626 and 83 per cent of this gap is due to gender-based discrimination. Even when it comes to casual employment, 95 per cent of the earnings gap is attributed to gender discrimination. While men see an average earning of ₹9,017, the average for women is ₹5,709.
“Oxfam India conducted extensive analysis of government data from 2004 to 2020 to understand the inequality and discrimination when it comes to access to jobs, income, health and agricultural credits across the country. What the report finds is if a man and woman start on an equal footing, the woman will be discriminated in the economic sphere where she will lag behind in regular/salaried, casual and self-employment. The inequality in the labour market for gender and other social categories, the report finds is not just due to poor access to education or work experience but because of discrimination”, said Amitabh Behar, CEO of Oxfam India.
Image used for representational purposes only.