Paper short abstract:

Decent work opportunities are critical for women, but in India, women’s participation in work has been declining. Dalit women are particularly disadvantaged in the labour market. This study examines the work profile of dalit and non-dalit women in India’s recent period of rapid growth.

Paper long abstract:

In the period since the early 1990s, when the Indian economy has grown by close to seven percent annually, the percentage of women engaged in earning activities has declined. This is paradoxical, since globally women's employment has grown with economic development. Some view this decline to rising household incomes and shift to education. However, this explanation may not be adequate since the precipitous decline is principally in rural areas and in self-employment that are associated with the operation of agricultural and other assets.

Dalit women are less likely to own and operate agricultural or non-agricultural assets, their households earn less than other households, and their participation in higher education continues to lag behind non-Dalit women. Socially, Dalit women are considered to be less constrained by restrictions on mobility and patriarchal norms. So what are the changes that have taken place in the profile of work by Dalit women compared to non-Dalit women?

We note that women's work is neatly divided between work that is associated with remunerative activities and other types of work, including those that support household subsistence but not counted as remunerative, and work solely associated with social reproduction. Shift from one type of work to another may reflect different types of economic and social constraints.

We use results from the employment-unemployment surveys by the National Sample Survey (1993-94 and 2011-12) to analyse the differences between participation in work by rural dalit and non-dalit women over India's period of fairly sustained high growth.