Gender and Economic Issues
7 aliyetlen
My Learning Aim! The invisible work of women
Changing times
Women in
In the last chapter, we understood the role of
gender in social sphere and how our society
has transformed to bring gender equality to
a
certain extent. Moving ahead, here in this
chapterwe will understandtherole of women
in economic sphere andthe challenges lying
ahead.
Invisible Workers
We have already seen that women undertake
the responsibility of household chores. They
are expeted to work dayand night without
any complaints. They put in their hard Work
and time to take care of the family members,
cook, wash clothes, clean the house, buy.
groceries and much more. The kind of labour
a woman
does is unpaid and unappreciated.
The woman of the housespends a substantial
time of her day in household work yet her
work remains invisible and they do not get
paid for the work they do at homes. As a
result women are paid
paid less_attention_and
are not remunerated for their work. Their
Pesmi Olar
1gic
3nt
informal and formal sector
participation is not calculated in the national
income.
Term
National Income: The sum total of
Treasure! money earned by acountry in ayear is
called national income of the country
There are two kinds of work. The work for
which remuneration is given and the work for
which no remuneration is given. It is believed
that womenwork for longer hours than men
but are left unpaid. The working womenwork,
even more than women at home and men,
but are paid far less than what they deserve.
This inequality in recognizing the work of
women has left them behind men.
The Working Women: Changing Times
The major change in the status of the work of
Women came during the Industrial Revolution
of the nineteenth century in Europe. Women
started working out of economic necesity
as waged workers outside their homes. They
Gender and Economic Issues 243
foundjobsinfactories, textile mills, workshs
and coal mines. As aresult the society started
valuing their work and contribution in the
economy. They also broke the stereotype
image of men as bread earners and women
as homemakers.
Women working in a factory during
the Industrial Revolution
Info
Bell According to the England Census
of 1851 women mainly worked
in textiles, clothing and domestic
service_sectors. Occupations like
armed forces, building, and construction and
commercial services had no women workers.
Gradually, fwomen across
the globe started
stepping out of their predefined roles and
took up challengingjobs like men. Therewere
mny reasons behind this transformation.
Firstly, women attained education and
training which empowered their thinking
and gave them courage to step out.
Secondly, the economic needs and
poverty forced them to earn
for their
family.
Thirdly, women wanted to share
the
role as the bread earner to contribute
towards better standard of living
Fourthly, some women felt the heed to
be economically independent and have
their say in the family.
Consequently, these reasons changed the role
ofwomen both in family andsociety. However,
244 Pragmatie Social Studies -7
their roles did not go less challenging, as
working women were expected to work both
at home and outside unlike men.
In Indiancontext, women have been working
outside the realm of homes since a very long
time but without being noticed. Women in
India have been contributors in both informal
and formal sectors.
Infornal Sector
The informal sector exits because of women.
Economic activities which are neither taxed
nor monitored by the government are termed
as informal activities. Under the informal
sector, womenwork as agriculturallabourers,
street vendors, construction labourers and
home servants. There is no work contract,
fixed timings fixed salaries for women. The
or
workis unskilled andit requires lot of physical
labour. The employers do not provide any
mediçal facilities, sick leaves, maternal leaves,
bonus or insurance to women. There is no job
security and employment can be terminated
at any time due to the absence of work
contract. They are paid 40-60 per cent less
0
than their male counterparts. Women face
discrimination and are mistreated on many
occasions at their work place. The reason why
women Continue to
work in informal sector is
due to extreme poverty and lack of any other
source of employment.
Women working as construction
labourers

The research data shows that almost
Buzz
370 million workers are employed
underthe informal, sector which
is nearly 93 per cent of the total
workforce
One of the important aspects of informal
sector is the least use of technology or
modernways of production. If the work
performed by female workers is replaced
by machine or technology, it will negatively
affect their employment status. For instance,
aready made garments factory in Delhi's slum
areaplans to installa button sewing machine
instead of employing twenty women for the
same work. Such a technology would leave
these women unemployed and there is no
way of securing their right to work.
Explore More!
Technology helps reducing the physical labour of a
worker. Explore some examples where technologyhas
helped the workers instead of taking away their jobs.
Formal Sector
Formal sector isjust the opposite of informal
sector. It encompasses all kinds of jobs
which are recognized income sources for
the purpose of taxation In modern times the
women has improved. Jobs in multinational
companies, schools, hospitals, banks and
service industry are a part of formal sector.
Each and every aspect of the formal sector
is organized. The employees work on
company's contract, violation of which can
cost the employee. There are fixed working
hours and fixed days of work. The companies
provide a number of additional facilities to
its employees, such as travelling allowance,
reimbursements, medical leaves, casual
leaves, bonus, promotions and medical
insurance.
For two decades there has been an increased
participation of Indian women in formal
sector. Nevertheless they continue to face
discrimination at work place. Women workers
are given less challenging targets than men
in multinational companies. The
higher
positions in most of the organizations are
held by men. Around two-third of the total
working population of women feels that they
are paid less than men for the same amount
of work. They are often considered secondary
when it comes to promotions and appraisals.
Many women face sexual harassment at work
place which remains unreported most of
the times. Married women feel the stress of
managing professional and family life. Single
women find it difficult to work late night due
tosecurity issues.
Butonthepositive side formalsectorprovides
securityof job and' good remuneration.
Women are provided medical facilities,
maternal cover and child birth leaves. Some
companies give weekend off to women. With
the constitution-recognizing equal pay for
equal work' under the Equal Remuneration
Açt_of 1976,-no, discrimination can-be made
based on sex-Women have equal right to
access job opportunities like men.
Know More!
The work force participation of women has fllen
from 37 per cent (2004-05) to 29 per cent ( 2009
10). If Indian women's work force participation
increases by 10 per cent (addition of 68 million
women) by 2025, then India's national income
would rise by 16 per cent.
The Road Ahead
In modern times, the condition of working
women has improved considerably. However,
this is not the end and women participation
has to be increased acfoss all the sectors in
order to end gender discrimination at work
Gender and Economic Issues 245