Decline in Woman's Participation in Work Force: A Stone in India's Path to Success!

Dear Reader,

(The views are entirely personal and is not intended to spread hatred towards any person.) 

 The recent developments in the fields like access to education, freedom, higher incomes and wages for woman are commendable for our country, but we are slowly inching towards a grave issue- reduction of woman in the country's workforce. While woman's literacy growth rate has seen a whooping  jump of 11.8% (Source: Wikipedia), woman's participation has fell to 21% in the recent years. By comparing our  figures with our neighbors like Sri Lanka's 33.7% and Bangladesh's 30.5%, we realize that we are very far behind. 

Now let us dive into the reasons of why this problem is spreading its pangs into India. The boon of rising household incomes has turned out into a bane for active participation of woman into the rural workforce. When income increases, woman find it easier to take up their traditional and conventional roles of housekeeping. Unmarried women in the age-group of 20-25 years are twice likely to join workforce in rural areas. The burden of marriage leads them to drop out from their jobs which in turn burdens our economy.  They sacrifice their careers to look after their children and household, but has one ever thought about how this personal sacrifice can lead to national degradation? Parents in most of the modern families have understood the importance of educating a woman and at least in urban areas almost equal amount of money is 'invested' in the education for boys and girls. But is the return same? No, much to my chagrin! Our country 'invests' crores of rupees in the form of college seats and scholarships for all students irrespective of gender. Most males 'return' the money and resources invested by our nation  and help in national growth. But non-working females lead to a drain of resources invested in their formative years. 

The jobless growth of India's economy is also a problem that needs to be worked out. During the COVID-19 period when job losses were paramount, women were the worst sufferers. Another reason is due to limited creation of jobs in the sectors that can absorb woman. For instance, Bangladesh's woman participation is looking up due to increase in surplus job opportunities in their ever expanding cloth  mills and cottage industries. Indian industries are not ready for the intake of women who have been rendered jobless in rural areas due to use of modern technology in earlier labor intensive works like seed sowing and tilling of the soil. India stands at third position when it comes to number of hours woman participate in unpaid domestic work. It is high time to end the patriarchal mindset and let ladies and gents become equal stakeholders in household duties as well as economic participation. 

If you are a young lady, then make a promise to yourself to give priority to your career and become a part of India's workforce so that you could contribute to India's economy. It is high time to do your part. A mother should teach her son the importance of sharing the duties of household and giving rampant support to his future working wife. Let us not burden our daughters only with household jobs so that when time passes away she doesn't regret the decisions imposed upon her. Men, it is your turn to prove yourselves by becoming gallant gentlemen who understands the commitments of his wife to work. Show her your support as two earnings are better than one. 

As a society let us encourage woman to work. Let us be vocal on this issue that is stealthily obliterating into our economy and country at large.  If half of India's population join hands to push the load of India's economy then the work will be done faster and we can scale the zeniths of glory twice higher than the projected level. The higher the climb, the beautiful is the view!

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Sighing off!

Diksha...