An Inquiry into the Economic Status of the Women in the Recent Time

Abstract

The problems of rapidly integrating women in the economic growth process have been drawing attention to planners, policy makers and entrepreneurs owning business (industry and services). This is mainly because of the traditional and rigid mindedness of the society and technological backwardness driven scarcity of self-employment opportunities have lead to serious imbalance between the two genders in their status, opportunities and potentials for contribution to the development of the country. The Indian women have for long been, by and large, wedded to traditions and have generally confined herself to household chores. In the wake of rapid industrialisation before liberalization, the development of education and training facilities for women has also assumed great importance. Further the very institution of 'family' has been undergoing a change and policy issues concerning pre school child care, flexible working hours, on job training etc have become of paramount importance. Since late 1960's till date, various theoretical developments have taken place addressing the issues of gender discrimination in the labour market. The present paper attempts to analyse the women participation in the various fields in the light of radical changes introduced by the Government of India in the front of industrial policy in particular and economic growth of the nation in general from 1991. Are women benefited by structural reforms? To answer this question is the main stay of this paper. Two possible parameter were explored to answer the question, such as, 1. Women employment in various sectors of the economy and 2. Women in business. To quantify the effect of reforms on the economic status of the women data are taken from Census of 1991 and 2001, Government of India and Third All India Census of Small-Scale Industries 2001-2002, Government of India. Following preliminary conclusions were drawn from the study. 1. Women participation and employment was confined to low paid sectors such as agriculture and allied activities, house hold and non-house hold industries before and after reforms. 2. Regional dimension of women participation reveals that irrespective of the economic status of the states. Women participation remained with the low paid sectors of the economy even after reforms. For instance, Gujarat is one among the three industrially advanced states but utterly poor in terms of women involvement in industry or business. Further higher women participation is observed in the household, non-household and electricity, water and gas supply, financial intermediation, rentals and other business activities, transport, storage and communication sector in the industrially affluent states such as Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. This implies that more diverse employment opportunities were available to the female of industrially advanced states. However, overall picture reveals that reforms failed to open new and diverse horizons of employment and self-employment for the women. Highest percentages of women were employed out of the total opportunities for employment of the states, such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and West Bengal. Except Tamil Nadu rest of the states were industrially lagging in comparison to Maharashtra and Gujarat. Further, higher levels of employments in the registered and unregistered units of SSI sector were observed in the states such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka, where as in unregistered SSI sectors the states such as West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh contribute higher share in comparison to other states of the nation. It implies that states with higher absorption capacity in terms of investment and employment in industrial and service sectors such as Gujarat failed to generate diverse productive employment for female even after reforms.