Pandemic: Unpaid work by women has made them 'as vulnerable as the unemployed'

By Our Representative
Speaking at a webinar organised by the Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI), New Delhi, and Counterview, on the State of Earnings in India: The Crisis of Inequality Amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic, Dr Anjana Thampi, assistant professor, Jindal Global Law School, Sonepat, talking about the today’s “worst downward spiral”, has regretted, the years leading up to the pandemic have shown a sinking in wages.
The workforce of India being an extensively heterogeneous lot, the majority of the salaried or the daily wage segment earn less than the median income that is 10,000. Caste and gender also play a pivotal role in demonstrating the earning of an individual, Dr Thampi said.
As a considerable section of women who are a part of the workforce and work in their family fields are not paid, and thus do not participate in the decision-making process. In addition to this, the female segment in the workforce is very less. That is 18-19% and has been declining significantly since the 1980s.
Workers from the disadvantaged castes also represent more in the jobs that pay less and can be replaced by automation but are not. The years leading up to the pandemic have shown a sinking in wages. The workers in the bottom have been hit the worst since they already had very little savings.
During the lockdown the unemployment peaked. Delayed payment of wages and nonwage has also been seen at a large scale. Issues like food and nutritional security also surfaced majorly due to the absence of income sources for many.
Keeping the status of economic inequality, 2020 was a good year for the wealthiest people of the country. The combined net worth of these billionaires increased by a staggering 35%. While 1.7 lakh people lost their jobs every hour in April 2020, according to Oxfam.
Economic inequalities are combined with the stark disparities in access to essentials. 905 million people did not have access to piped water and 287 million did not have access to toilets. One-fourth of the population lived in single-room dwellings while 5% of the population lived in dwellings with more than 5 rooms. Disparities in access to online education and economic distress can increase the number of dropouts and worsen access to employment opportunities.
Dr Priyanka Chatterjee, assistant professor, Department of Economics and International Business, School of Business Studies, Sharda University, taking the discussion ahead, said that the status of employment in India was already not in a good shape prior to the pandemic. The gender lens to the access of paid work was also discussed. A majority of unpaid work being done by women, makes them as vulnerable as the unemployed.
The surveys conducted to study the status of employment, have all stated that the ratio of unemployed women working at home has increased considerably in the pandemic. The workforce had been hit worse in the first wave of the pandemic than the rural.

Women in independent sector earn as much as one-third of men's pay and are unable to access basic infrastructure to run and hold small scale business

The construction and manufacturing sector being hit the worst in the pandemic, the recovery has not been as well as anticipated, since the third wave has hit the rural areas also, along with the urban. Unemployment from the construction sector has been the most, along with the manufacturing sector, with the service sector having to through the least unemployment.
According to a Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) report,13.3 million people lost jobs in the construction sector, 8 million in the manufacturing sector, and contrastingly 20 million in the service sector that has a sizably small share in the labour market. The reason for this situation in the service sector is the nature of the unorganized service sector.
The construction industry being shut from the day of the commencement of the lockdown, has led to the unemployed men and women from the industry to shift to independent work. But statistics have shown that self earners are equally economically vulnerable if not more. Women in the independent sector earn as much as one-third of the men's pay and are unable to access basic infrastructure to run and hold small scale businesses.
Answering questions from Dr Simi Mehta, CEO, IMPRI, regarding the gender roles and how and when can we expect a paradigm shift in the areas of divided unequal income, Dr Thampi said that the acknowledgement and active concern that these issues have been and are receiving is a move towards change.
As compared to the previous times when these issues were not a part of the public dialogue. In addition, to accelerate the process towards more equitable income and access, better policy frameworks need to be implemented. Concerns regarding the working status of the ASHA workers and their honorarium were also discussed. The need to institutionalize the credit facilities by the banks was also mentioned.

Comments

Modi govt distancing from Adanis? MoEFCC 'defers' 1500 MW project in Western Ghats

By Rajiv Shah Is the Narendra Modi government, in its third but what would appear to be a weaker avatar, seeking to show that it would keep a distance, albeit temporarily, from its most favorite business house, the Adanis? It would seem so if the latest move of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) latest to "defer" the Adani Energy’s application for 1500 MW Warasgaon-Warangi Pump Storage Project is any indication.

US govt funding 'dubious PR firm' to discredit anti-GM, anti-pesticide activists

By Our Representative The Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) has vocally condemned the financial support provided by the US Government to questionable public relations firms aimed at undermining the efforts of activists opposed to pesticides and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in India.

Bayer's business model: 'Monopoly control over chemicals, seeds'

By Bharat Dogra* The Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has rendered a great public service by very recently publishing a report titled ‘Bayer’s Toxic Trails’ which reveals how the German agrochemical giant Bayer has been lobbying hard to promote glyphosate and GMOs, or trying to “capture public policy to pursue its private interests.” This report, written by Joao Camargo and Hans Van Scharen, follows Bayer’s toxic trail as “it maintains monopolistic control of the seed and pesticides markets, fights off regulatory challenges to its toxic products, tries to limit legal liability, and exercises political influence.”

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded reaction in the form of a link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

105,000 sign protest petition, allege Nestlé’s 'double standard' over added sugar in baby food

By Kritischer Konsum* 105,000 people have signed a petition calling on Nestlé to stop adding sugar to its baby food products marketed in lower-income countries. It was handed over today at the multinational’s headquarters in Vevey, where the NGOs Public Eye, IBFAN and EKO dumped the symbolic equivalent of 10 million sugar cubes, representing the added sugar consumed each day by babies fed with Cerelac cereals. In Switzerland, such products are sold with no added sugar. The leading baby food corporation must put an end to this harmful double standard.

Militants, with ten times number of arms compared to those in J&K, 'roaming freely' in Manipur

By Sandeep Pandey* The violence which shows no sign of abating in the ongoing Meitei-Kuki conflict in Manipur is a matter of concern. The alienation of the two communities and hatred generated for each other is unprecedented. The Meiteis cannot leave Manipur by road because the next district North on the way to Kohima in Nagaland is Kangpokpi, a Kuki dominated area where the young Kuki men and women are guarding the district borders and would not let any Meitei pass through the national highway.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah* The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual.

UNEP report on how climate crisis is impacting displacement, global conflicts, declining health

By Shankar Sharma* A recent report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), titled "A Global Foresight Report on Planetary Health and Human Wellbeing," warrants urgent attention from our country’s developmental perspective. The findings, detailed in the report, should be a source of significant concern not only globally but especially for our nation, which has a vast population and limited natural resources.

Search This Blog