Govt gets cracking as urban women employment rate declines

A revelation which may cause concern to policy planners, the rate of employment for urban women has come down by 2 percent in about a decade’s time. According to National Sample Survey (NSS) report 2011-12, the urban women employment rate has been pitched at 15 percent, while in 2004-05 it was nearly 17 percent.

A related 2012 report on global employment trends by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) indicates that India’s urban female Workforce Participation Rate (WPR) is one of the lowest in the world at 15 percent, ranking 11th from the bottom among 131 countries. In fact, even female Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) has declined from nearly 18 percent in 2004-05 to 16 percent in the urban areas.

Latest government data indicates that number of women employed in the rural areas is nearly 26 percent, while women working in urban areas, lags far behind at 15 percent. Regarding the economic empowerment of women, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Sanjay Gandhi, recently said: “The status of women’s economic empowerment is measured by three key indicators, namely WPR released in the Census by the office of Registrar General of India, LFPR and Worker Population Ratio released in the National Sample Survey (NSS) by the office of Ministry of Statistics and programme implantation through its NSS rounds on employment and unemployment survey.” In each of these three spheres, women in the urban areas lag far behind from women working in the rural sector.

To arrest this decline, the WCD Ministry has started implementing several schemes to generate employment for women. Gandhi said these include, “Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP) to ensure sustainable employment and income generation for marginalised and asset-less rural and urban poor women.”

“As per Census 2011, the WPR for females is 25.51 percent against 53.26 percent for males. Rural sector has a better female WPR of 20.02 percent compared with 53.03 percent for males whereas for urban sector the participation rate of females trails at 15.44 percent against 53.76 percent for males,” said Gandhi.

On her initiatives, Gandhi added saying: “Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK) is meant to extend micro-finance services to uplift poor women socio-economically. The National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW) is committed to strengthen overall process to promote all round development of women. Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for empowerment of adolescent girls — termed Sabla, is committed to all-round development of adolescent girls (11-18 years) to make them self-reliant by facilitating access to learning, health and nutrition.”