Abstract
UN Women’s 2018 report ‘Turning Promises into Action’ shows that just 63 per cent of women aged 25–54 participate in the labour force, compared to 94 per cent for men in the same age bracket. On average, women continue to earn 23 per cent less than men. Meanwhile, women do about three times more unpaid care and domestic work than men, including school runs or caring for elderly relatives.
This issue explores how the unshared care responsibilities affects where women work and in turn affects what they earn. It prevents them from studying, taking care of their health and taking on leadership activities. It also contributes to the segregation of women into the more flexible but more low-paying, low-value jobs, that keep them in positions of less authority.
Ellina Samantroy’s article ‘The Invisible Workers’, details how the majority of women in India are predominantly in the informal sector engaged in casual employment, self-employment, piece rated work or home-based work. They remain unaccounted and undercounted in National Accounting Statistics. Working conditions in this segment are poorly managed, often inhuman, and are of great concern and largely remain outside the purview of social protection.
Some slip into situations of extreme exploitation and violence, like the prostituted women of Najafgarh, portrayed in Bernard Henin’s photo essay. On the same theme of violence against women, Aruni Wijayath, writes about the legal impact of female genital mutilation on the criminal justice system of Sri Lanka, while Kislay Kumar Singh, writes about the half-widows, who are the invisible victims of the enforced disappearances in Kashmir.
To overcome these dangers, women are struggling to take back the public space, move out of home-based work and challenge the structural and physical violence in their lives. In the Interrogating Culture Section, V. Bijukumar, explains the reasons behind the struggle of women to enter the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala, as a desire to overcome the unfairness of home and hearth.
In ‘Female Attitudes Towards Self-Employment and Breaking Occupational Stereotypes’, Madhuri Mahato and Julie Vardhan project the same struggle in a different context. They write about a group of women, who have broken the occupational stereotype and become auto drivers in the state of Jharkhand. While the study highlights the successes, it also provides insights into the challenges they face to succeed as women micro-entrepreneurs.
These constrain women’s options and limits their earning and career opportunities. It affects how young women and adolescent girls plan their futures. It also affects how families plan the future of adolescent girls as Dr Santwana G. Mishra highlights in her article ‘Gender-Wise Study of Family Climate for Adolescents in Urban India’.
This issue frames the violence, marginalization and subjugation of women in the workplace, with the forced alienation of women from the environment. The work and knowledge of women is often undervalued in both environmental planning and domestic resource management. Anjali Dalal examines the impact of Environmental Patriarchy on other social issues and patriarchy in private domain.
To make economies work for women, we need to deconstruct negative social norms and rebalance the power structures that fuel violence and inequality. For this, we need to empower women in the workplace. We know we need to ensure access to decent jobs, with equal pay and opportunities, active mentoring and sponsorship programmes, promoting women’s entrepreneurship, greater flexibility in remote working, and provisions such as health and childcare, parental leave and pension schemes. This is all that it takes to make a difference for women at work.