Creating Jobs For Women In Rural India Must Be A Focus, Says Ashwini Deshpande

The participation of women in India's labour force has been declining over the past two decades. This is not because of social norms but rather because of a decline in the contribution of agriculture to overall employment, according to Ashwini Deshpande, professor of economics at Ashoka University.

Deshpande was speaking to BQ Prime on the sidelines of the Law, Economics, and Policy Conference organised by the Institute of New Economic Thinking at FLAME University in Pune.

A lot of the academic research points to the impact of social norms as the cause for the declining participation of women in the workforce, Deshpande said. However, most of the decline has taken place in rural India and among women from the economically weaker section, usually belonging to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.

These women, Deshpande said, have traditionally not refused work because of taboo. Rather, their economic compulsion forces them to take up work that is available, she said. The major source of employment in rural India has traditionally been agriculture, and the share of this sector in India's employment generation has fallen in line with its contribution to India's gross domestic product.

The services sector, which now has a much larger share of India's GDP, has not replaced the employment lost because of the shrinking contribution of agriculture.

India must focus on creating jobs in rural India, Deshpande said. Here, China's model of creating low-productivity manufacturing enterprises to help generate employment could be emulated. As an example, Deshpande says food processing could unlock immense potential.