Industry & Economy
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Economic Survey
'Women workforce in rural areas down'
Our Bureau
New Delhi
,
July 7
THE country may be marching towards development and getting increasingly globalised, but when it comes to the lot of almost half its population - women - conditions are still far from encouraging for their growth and development.
Take for example, the number of women working outside homes. Despite increased globalisation and hence job creation, there has been a shocking decline in the number of women working outside homes in the rural areas.
According to the 58th Round (July-December 2004) Survey of NSSO, the female workforce participation rate in rural areas declined to 281 per thousand from 299 in the 55th Round (July 1999-2000). In urban areas, while there was an increase in the number of working women, it was very marginal - from 139 to 140 per thousand.
Again, the Economic Survey 2003-04 acknowledges that though women constitute 48 per cent of the country's total population, they still continue to suffer many disadvantages compared to men. These could be in areas such as literacy rates, labour participation rates and earnings.
While the Survey does list eight broad initiatives being taken to improve women's lot in India, no timeframe or specific goals have been set for ensuring that women are not discriminated upon.
The Survey found that the number of women employed in the organised sector (both public and private) stood at 4.95 million on March 31, 2002, which is about 18.1 per cent of the total organised sector employment in the country.
While the least number of employed women work in sectors such as finance, insurance and real estate (5.2 per cent), the maximum are employed in community, social and personnel services (56.5 per cent). Manufacturing sector employed 20.6 per cent women followed by 9.4 per cent in agriculture and allied occupations. The Survey found that the proportion of women in organised sector employment is higher in States with higher female literacy.
According to a National Institute of Public Finances & Policy study on Gender Budgeting, the average female wage is almost 80 per cent of the male average in urban areas but falls to 60 per cent of the corresponding male rate in rural areas.
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