In recent years, female employment rates in India have become a much-needed point of attention for the Modi government. Considering that India’s female labour force participation rate (LFPR) hit a low of 21% in 2018, that seems to have recovered to 37% by 2023 and is no longer in the downward spiral that it was in the previous two decades, the danger may appear to be over. While trends are improving, according to the World Bank, India is still behind the world average of 47.4% female LFPR, and over twice as many men are employed as women. Besides poor education, and cultural norms that view women as carers, Kolkata’s latest rape and murder case of a 31-year-old doctor* highlights a crucial reason for the disparity: gender-based violence.
*(the names of victims of rape in India legally cannot be disclosed)
Poor education and a patriarchal culture towards women as caregivers do of course contribute to low female employment rates. The male employment rate is 78.5%, and Educate Girls 2013 claims that the national average shows that only one woman for every two men receives an education. There is a clear correlation between these two statistics; men are twice as likely to receive an education and twice as likely to be employed. In 2011, the World Bank released a report called “Educating Girls, Ending Poverty: Strong Returns to Educating Girls”. This report shows that educating women breaks a cycle of poverty. By having an educated mother, a child is 50% more likely to live past the age of 5, and by providing girls with an extra year of schooling, wages can increase by up to 20%. Thus, by educating girls, they should be more encouraged to partake in employment rather than exclusively as caregivers. Since the World Bank report, there has been a slow rise in female literacy, with the National Statistical Commission surveying literacy at 84.7% for males and 70.3% for females. While the change is slow, it is happening. With the right to free and compulsory education for all children aged 6 to 14 only being legalised in 2009, we hope this gap will lessen. Nonetheless, as already mentioned, education is only part of the problem.
There is still an improbable additional factor to the issue of low female employment. Urban areas have a much higher female literacy rate, 83%, compared to rural areas, 65% in 2021. Likewise, states can see a difference of 0.7 in the average births per woman between rural and urban areas. From this, we should be able to extrapolate that patriarchal norms such as women as housewives are more robust in rural cases. However, the opposite is true; the rural female LFPR is 41.5% and 25.4% in urban areas. This is where India may be in trouble. The substantial economic growth of the 90s partially derived from female employment may be affected if higher education does not lead to more jobs. The unfortunate twist is that educated women are leaving their careers in the city as it is too unsafe for them due to the fear of sexual assault. The infamous 2024 Kolkata rape case tragically exemplifies just how dangerous it can be to be an employed woman. A junior doctor was raped and murdered in the college hospital she worked at. The college initially ruled the death as a suicide, with it later being revealed she was murdered and that the college principal, along with a police officer, had attempted to destroy evidence to conceal the principal’s financial abuse within the hospital. This attack led to a 42-day strike among junior doctors and nationwide protests against gender-based violence. Kolkata’s case shows systemic attempts to conceal the attack and potentially rape for hire as a fearmongering tactic. Even if this is not the case, it highlights how easy it is for an attack to occur in the workplace and the urgent need for safety precautions even in a hospital. This case has brought back sentiments of the 2012 Nirbhaya rape case when six unconnected men raped a woman, also a stranger to them, on a moving bus. These two cases exemplify that no place, known or unknown, is safe for a woman in urban India. Hence, it is no surprise that many urban women are moving away from employment and are usually working from home.
Whilst there may be de jure protections, this has by no means penetrated the social environment in India, and women should not have to make a choice between GBV and work. Hopefully, protests will propel India into a culture where a workplace can be safe for women with more stringent protections in place.