The Missing Women
In one of the sessions in #npc2019 last week, Kunal Shah, the founder of CRED, mentioned something that caught my attention. The workforce participation of women in India is abysmal and lower than Pakistan (in percentage participation). I was surprised at that — we’ve been educating the girls at a higher rate than any country and I thought it cannot be that bad. I did some investigation on my own to understand.
The Numbers
First up, the labor participation numbers published by ILO is available online (https://ilostat.ilo.org/data/country-profiles/). The number is that only 20.8% of Indian women are part of the workforce. That is only one in five. In comparison, Pakistan has 21.9% of women working.
Lets look at a map here. This gives the FLFP percentage color coded. Now, it can be surprising to see the high female labor participation rates in both western countries and poor African nations. The reason is diametrically opposite. In poorer countries, women work for subsistence and in developed countries, the contribution is substantial towards GDP. It is well-researched and published*.
The lower participation rates does not affect the Middle East as they have Oil funding the countries. Where such a revenue source is lacking — the central/south American, North African and South Asian countries, we see low GDP numbers. The economic cost of keeping up this disparity is going to be terrible**.
Why?
I mean, we all know why. We are a deeply patriarchal society which seem to be progressing backwards. We are giving the girls an education at a higher rate than ever before but there is still a strong aversion to send them for work. While the Gross Enrollment Ratio(GER) is increasing — the corresponding effect on GDP is not being seen.
But I am not going to delve into the cultural reasons — though they constitute the large percentage of reason why our women are not joining the workforce and will necessitate discussion separately on what needs to be done. For LinkedIn, I will focus on the corporate workforce policies which enable this — once the women joins the workforce.
This starts at the interview stage — there are always a bias against the women candidates — they cannot work late, they are costlier etc and mostly, the person who interviews already comes with a ‘percentage’ number on how many women he/she will hire. There are no official policies but this is done. Then comes the marriage when a portion of these women drop out and of course, if they continue after maternity, that is a miracle.
While the corporate policies cannot be faulted, it is the mindset of the middle management in the organization that determines how much help is extended to keep these women in the workforce.
What need to be done?
I believe a lot of these changes have to come from us as individuals. No corporate policies excludes women willingly but the enforcers of said policies have to stop being myopic about the women and encourage at every avenue to retain them in the payrolls.
Culturally, the change has to come at the familial level and if there is a women in the family or in your extended family who is not encouraged to go to work, it is our duty to intervene and provide the necessary support to support them.
More than being culturally progressive or being politically correct, the economy of the matter is straight forward. For comparison, Indonesia with a 1 Trillion USD economy has a per capita income of ~4000 USD and we have a 2.7 Trillion USD with a paltry per capita of ~1900 USD. Indonesia has 50% of their women in workforce against the 20% we have. Thus, economically, to uplift the families wealth (and the nation’s) and to achieve an equitable growth, it goes without saying that we need to bring more women into the workforce.
Of course, the mindset change that needs to happen to enable this has to be brought in from the individuals and be propagated across. If we were to have a shot at becoming a 5 Trillion USD economy at all, we cannot let our women to be left behind.
