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The share of women employed in regular salaried jobs in urban India hit a fresh low in the January-March quarter (Q4) of 2023-24 (FY24).
In the same period, the share of women engaged in self-employment went up.
An analysis of the latest quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data showed the share of women in regular wage work among all employed women stood at 52.3 per cent in Q4FY24, down from 53 per cent in the previous quarter.
The earlier low was recorded in the second quarter of FY24 when the share of women employed in regular wage work had fallen to 52.8 per cent.
This is the lowest share of women in wage employment in any quarter in the past six years since the National Statistical Office started releasing the quarterly PLFS surveys in the third quarter (Q3) of 2018-19.
The share of women in wage work was the highest in the first quarter of 2020-21 at 61.2 per cent.
The survey, using the current weekly status measure of employment, classifies a person according to the type of work they would have engaged in during a one-week reference period, such as self-employed, regular wage/salaried employee, and casual labour.
The survey showed that the share of self-employed women increased to 41.3 per cent in Q4FY24 from 40.3 per cent in Q3FY24, while that in casual work dipped to 6.5 per cent from 6.7 per cent during the corresponding period.
In regular wage or salaried work, workers regularly receive fixed wages and are generally considered a better form of employment than working as a casual worker or being self-employed as the latter comprises working as unpaid household help in agricultural fields or a family business or owning a small enterprise.
On the other hand, the labour force participation rate (LFPR) among women in urban areas, including those employed as well as seeking jobs, has gone up, touching a six-year high of 25.6 per cent in Q4FY24, yet it is quite low when compared to rural areas.
According to the latest annual PLFS report for 2022-23, women’s LFPR in the rural workforce stood at 30.5 per cent.
Labour economist Santosh Mehrotra says that women often participate in labour markets to supplement the family income rather than working for their professional growth and in India, the rise in education levels among women has meant them staying at home doing household chores and childcare, especially in urban areas.
“The urban economy is not able to produce enough decent jobs for the increasing labour force of both men and women leading to greater competition among them.
"This is the reason more of them are working as household help in family enterprises or setting up their small businesses.
"Manufacturing has not yet taken off in India, leading to a scarcity of quality jobs,” he added.
However, a recent report by the State Bank of India has claimed that India’s labour market, including women’s employment, is undergoing a structural transformation with self-entrepreneurship in “all echelons” with higher educational attainment and access to formal credit through programmes like MUDRA Yojana and PM SVANidhi emerging as a key enabler.
The report has claimed that the government’s emphasis on entrepreneurship through credit facilitating programs has helped family-run enterprises to avail of formal credit, leading to them getting bigger, which is reflected through a rise in household helpers as more people from the family join the enterprise and find work.
