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Abstract

The key results of the National Sample Survey (NSS) on employment and unemployment for the period July 2011–June 2012 indicate a sharp fall in the number of women in India’s rural workforce. It is reported that 9.1 million rural women are out of the workforce in a period of two years (against the backdrop of a parallel NSS for the period July 2009–June 2010). The decline has been discussed and debated from various perspectives and vantage positions and essentially boil down to two key concerns: de-feminisation of work leading to the social and economic exclusion of women, and the failure of the state to recognise and account for women’s work leading to their alleged absence from the rural workforce. Rather than reviewing the discussion and debate, the present comment attempts to bring together significant reasons behind this occurrence. The withdrawal is viewed as an outcome of the structural changes in the economy and the social provisioning for women within a comprehensive framework. It critiques the role of the state in the retention of women in the workforce and concludes with a brief discussion on the need for a systematic policy intervention in this regard.

Keywords

Employment rural women workforce work participation rate

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Women’s Withdrawal from India’s Rural Workforce: Explaining the Trend

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