Gender agenda newsletter: All work, no pay

Ten years ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “As long as we have a 18th century mentality, we do not have the right to call the 21st century citizens”. He called for an end to the discrimination between sons and daughters and launched the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ plan. The aim was to reduce the female feet and educate girls.

India has made progress on both fronts. The gender ratio at birth is written in this piece Shamika Ravi. In other words, there is less sex selective abortion and girls have less neglect. The data also shows that girls’ gross registration rate in education increased from 75.51% to 78% in 2014-15%.

As Shamika points out, the education of girls has “fluctuation effects .. As more girls are trained, then they have marriage and less children. This affected India’s total fertility rate falling to 2.0 just below the backup level. However, Shamika acknowledges that the general female labor participation rate (FLFPR) is a challenge.

In this piece, Subhanil Chowdury and Anushree Gupta closely examine the data about Flfpr. Nominal value, FLFPR seems encouraging, increased from 23.3% to 2017-18 to 41.7% in 2023-24. This means that more women are employed or actively looking for jobs. We see around us: Women as teachers, entrepreneurs, factory workers, scientists, journalists, women as IT workers.

However, women continue to face obstacles both in terms of gains and business types for themselves. “The increase in FLFPR is largely caused by an increase in women who are considered as’ assistants’ in household businesses’ and free employee workers. Wage employment has not expanded and most women have fallen for the category of women workers,”.

The situation seems particularly worrying in rural areas. In this piece, Shravani Prakash and Anjhana Ramesh find that men in rural areas have fill the agricultural study area as they enter higher wage -wage non -agricultural work in the last decade. Again, this seems to be good news on the surface: women’s employment in agriculture has increased by 135% and now they constitute more than 42% of the sector’s labor force.

Shravani and Anjhana, “Nevertheless, this increase came with decreasing feedback,” he says. “Almost half of women in agriculture are unpaid family workers … In states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, more than 80% of female workers do not charge in agriculture and more than half.”

Perhaps last week, Prime Minister Bihar for women in November, which will go to polls and each of the 75 Lakh women launched an employment plan by transferring to the bank accounts of 10,000. Most importantly, utilitors – women aged 16 to 80 – women outside the income tax intervals.

In short, more women enter the labor force in India, but many of them are assistants, self -employed or unpaid agricultural workers. This proposes something worrying: women seem to be entering the labor force, not out of the election, but from necessity.

These developments are due to a combination of factors: the ongoing dominance of the informal economy; Official labor for women, supportive working environments, lack of skills and opportunities; And policy gaps, a few names. In the case of Anshakalin Stri Parichar in Maharashtra in Maharashtra (part -time female officials in primary health centers and lower centers), the stagnation of 3,000/months since 2016 is “framed as opportunities for public service, but in practice it is exploitation”.

The situation is also a reflection of some households of the 18th century mentality in some households – someone who expects women to “save” their family farms or businesses or not only in the home, but also to do unpaid workmanship.

Vehicle set

There are several art and sports clubs in the town and villages of Kerala, but most men are alone. Now, various local organs are building such places for women who use their own funds. Read Sr Praveen’s report here.

Wordsworth

Passports independent of gender: Since 2019, Canadian citizens and inhabitants have the option to choose ‘X’ in terms of gender and travel documents, except for ‘male’ and ‘women’. On October 2 Canada published a travel consultancy Warning that citizens with ‘X’ passports independent of gender cannot be accepted on the US border due to the latest policy changes in that country. This refers to the January order of President Donald Trump, which only recognizes two sexes: male and female.

Ah!

In the case of any work that requires physical power for the realization of the war, these physical standards should be high and independent of gender. If women can succeed, perfect; If not, this is. If this means that no woman is entitled to some war affairs, so.

Pete Hegseth, US Defense Secretary

The people we meet

42 -year -old Kavitha M. teaches physics and chemistry in 6 to 9 classes in a school in Chennai. He earns 20,000 la per month. Every morning Kavitha wakes up, cooks for her husband and son and leaves school. When he returns home, each receives mathematics for two children for an hour and earns 5,000 more. “Every day is a struggle, or he says. “My husband works as a painter and we need to buy food together, pay electricity bills, pay 70,000 ° for our son’s annual university fees.” Kavitha says that he wants to take more lessons for children and earn more, but his husband insists that the lights go out at 20:30. I can’t install my family ..

Published – 05 October 2025 08:06