It is known that in India the participation of women as work force in formal sector has been very low. This lower not compared to that of developed countries. It is more in the countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam, Nepal, etc.
Recently it is reported in a national media that the share of women in formal manufacturing sector has been declining. It was 20.9% in 2015-16 it fell to 18.9% in 2022-23. . This means about 1.57 million are engaged out of 8.34 million formal workers. Here one state is notably different. This is Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu alone employs about 41% of the total women workforce in manufacturing. The report also mentioned that the workforce employed informal manufacturing has been 43%. This means women are not getting better jobs in Indian manufacturing. In this regard states such as West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra employs about 50% of the total informal women workforce I India.
Gender gap in formal manufacturing in the country
In Bihar, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Haryana have highest gender gap in the formalmanufacturing workforce. I these states women constitutes only 6% of the workforce, according to the report. The situation is not very different in highly industrially developed states like, Maharashtra, Gujarat. The gender disparity is also high in these states with women participation less than 15%.
Another cause for concern
The women participation is very high in informal tobacco manufacturing sector. I this sector their participation is 90% of all employment. It means the women are highly prone to tobacco related diseases. It also means the women are not productive enough to e employed in higher productivity sector. The report mentions information from Periodic Labour Force Survey and pointed out that among women only 6% have either formal training or training on the job.
It is already known that the women in India are employed against any king of payment has been as low as 17%. The rest of them are either not working women or working in their family business or farming without any payments in return.
This is a concern as if the women are not employed properly in the development of India will be restricted as quite a large number of persons would remain outside the job market of the country.
