Gender Gap In Education And Labour Workforce

Abstract

The main points of this paper include extensively examining the female labor force in India, highlighting India having one of the lowest participation rates for women amongst other countries. Using thorough Indian household survey data, the paper models choices of women, conditional on demographic characteristics and education, as well as looking at the influence of state-level labor market flexibility and other state policies. The paper’s chief finding is that a number of policy initiatives can help boost female economic participation in the states of India, including increased labor market flexibility, and investment in infrastructure.

Conclusion of the paper: The paper examines many statistics relating to under what circumstances women and men work in the labor force of India formally and informally. It concludes that married women are less likely to be in the labor force which is the opposite for men which is expected, also that both sexes with young children are less likely to work as well as both sexes who are illiterate. Another interesting conclusion is that most women who work do so in order to support their family while the percentage of men who work in order to support their family is significantly less, meaning they work for themselves and spend on themselves.

On the topic of Labor Market Flexibility: it is concluded that the more flexible a market is, it affects women significantly more than it does men, indicating that flexibility does not affect male participation as strongly as it does female participation. Therefore, flexibility increases the probability of women being employed.

The chance of being employed in the formal sector also increases in more flexible labor markets. Analysing State level Initiatives revealed that poor infrastructure has a negative effect on female labor participation where women living in states with greater access to roads are more likely to be in the labor force than those in states with less access to roads.

By taking all of this information into account, the paper concludes that female labor participation in India is lower than many other emerging market economies and that it has been declining since the mid 2000’s. The gap in the labor force between men and women is large, and this gap should be narrowed. The paper provides ideas that could be put forth and adopted by the government in order to boost female labor participation such as increased labor market flexibility, which could lead to the creation of more formal sector work for women. Giving women that are unemployed and ones that are only employed in the informal sector the opportunity to enter the formal sector and prove themselves. Also, by analysing the current educational opportunities that women are given, the paper provides evidence that by investing further in women’s education and giving them more opportunities, will lead to higher female labor force participation.

The main points of this paper analyses many Indian districts to describe that girls have relatively lower literacy compared to boys in areas where more women are in the labor force. Also that women who have independent access to economic resources enable them to better resist some areas of patriarchal control, showing that villages where women’s labor force participation was high, women had greater mobility, better communication with family members, namely husbands and parents, as well as have more control over the resources in the household in relation to distribution of financial resources and how to deal with liabilities allowing both women and men to have equal standing in the household. This was seen lower where women's labor participation in the village was low.

Also, the paper outlines that some needs of the children are better seen by the mother such as the need for schooling, therefore if more women had increased bargaining power through economic empowerment, they would better tend for the schooling of their kids.

The conclusion of paper 2’s analysis is interesting as it depicts widening gender gaps in education which it associates with higher proportions of women in the labor force. Theories such as human capital and feminist empowerment would suggest that women’s employment should encourage girls’ education. However, This theory is not the case in India where even areas that have more women employment, result in lower literacy levels for girls compared to boys in those areas. Explaining that this occurs when girls’ become the local labor force, and because of working informally, their school attendance is affected, and their education becomes second, leading them unable to read or write. This happens many times from households that send girls to work to finance boys’ schooling, leading in gender inequalities.

Introduction

The background of this topic stems from the fact that India itself is a nation with over a billion people. This means all these people need to be taken care of and need employment in order to support themselves and family. Also, this is a topic that needs to be addressed desperately by the Indian government as compared to other emerging economies, indian women have the least labor force participation and this is something that can be changed by the government through policies that make it easier for women to start and keep working. This topic is extremely significant for our country as it examines and highlights the reasons why women, who comprise half the people, are present in much less of the labor force.

The background of this topic is related to the topic of paper 1 and vice versa. The background is related to how the lack of girls’ education in India is one of the primary reasons why women cannot enter the workforce as many of them are illiterate and/or have not attended in secondary schools, leaving school at an early age due to family pressures such as housework and finding work outside of school in order to finance the schooling of the boys in the household. Another major reason for girls not completing their schooling includes marrying girls at an early age so that they are forced to run a household at an early age which hinders them to be able to attend school and further their education.

Research Questions being investigated

Female labor

The research questions being investigated include: linking the issue of female labor force participation in India to other labor markets, and also to focus on studying the formal and informal sector employment which has not been the focus of previous studies.

Save your time!
We can take care of your essay

• Proper editing and formatting
• Free revision, title page, and bibliography
• Flexible prices and money-back guarantee

Place Order

Rural and Urban areas

Linking and studying the different female labor force participation between women in rural and urban areas. Linking that states in the south and east of India generally display higher participation rates than those in North india.

Rising household incomes

The paper studies rising household incomes and notes that with rising household incomes, participation rates of women in the labor force start to drop off. This is linked to a housewife mentality where someone else is the breadwinner of the home, they must not work but instead, take care of the home and kids.

Female literacy

The research questions being investigated include analyzing why female literacy is less than male literacy and how to fix this problem. The paper analyses that instances in early age when girls are forced to quit education due to family pressures, their future is greatly impacted as it becomes harder for them to find work in the formal and informal workforce due to not being able to attend their early education, this inability to complete their education leads them to become illiterate, or it may hinder them from working in a place where qualifications are needed.

Higher rate of women working does not equal higher rate of girls’ education

The statistics of higher rates of women starting to work in the labor workforce due to more progressive perspectives in 20th century India as well as the feminist movement empowering girls and women, allowing them to continue education and find jobs is an amazing thing, however this paper depicts that even in towns and villages where women work more, formally and informally, it doesnt show an incease in girls’ education. The paper tries to explain that girls that are young are sometimes forced to take care of the house, cooking food, cleaning the home and washing the clothes. Linking that women that work are too tired to work when they come home and therefore these responsibilities fall to the younger children who start focusing more on housework than their schoolwork.

Hypotheses

The hypotheses’ presented in the first paper describes that if all the policies and state initiatives presented in the paper are addressed by the government, then the levels of labor force participation of women would highly increase and boost our economy through highlighting the problems the papers show and exhibit what it would look like if those problems are addressed.

The hypotheses’ presented in the second paper portray that by showing Indians how important it is to facilitate the education of young girls, it may show Indian households that they should take better care of the education of girls and that they should not think of attending school as a small thing, rather an important stage of life which will allow them to become successful later on in life.

Results of the studies

The first paper’s results depict the negligence of the Indian government in providing the female indian workforce as much opportunities as they provide males in getting into the workforce. This is advantageous as it outlines many problems that the Indian government can treat if they address the problem.

The second paper’s results describe that adult women also need to better participate in the education of other girls in the household by helping them with their education and advising them on the importance of the attendance of school and in general the importance of education in society.

Limitations of the papers

Limitations and disadvantages of the first paper is that it does not take into account the fact that women might not want to enter the workforce and would rather stay at home or work informally. A psychological aspect of women working has not been discussed which could have hindered the paper’s ability to produce an effective paper.

Limitations of the second paper is that it does not provide many solutions to the problems which it highlights as much as the first paper does. This means that ordinary people that may read the article will understand the problem, but remain indifferent to the solutions of the problems depicted in paper 2 as they are unclear.

Conclusion

To conclude, both papers provided ample evidence and problems of the indian society that can be addressed by the government such as the lack of women in the Indian labor force and also the lower literacy rates between women which make it harder for them to enter the labor force, illustrating that both papers are linked in the fact that they both describe problems that hinder women entering the labor force.