Intersectionality of gender and caste in women’s participation in the labour force Premium

This paper examines the impact of gender and caste on women's access to livelihood opportunities in India, highlighting the challenges faced by women from lower castes and the benefits of their participation in the workforce.

Kadam, Ashay and Sarkar, Kingshuk, ‘The Role of Gender and Caste in Accessing Livelihood Opportunities in India’, Vol 58, Issue no. 51, Economic and Political Weekly, December 23, 2023

Over the past two decades, there has been a significant decline in female Labour Force Participation (LFP), in line with an overall reduction in labour force engagement. Structural rigidities in India’s manufacturing and service sectors have restricted employment opportunities in the informal sector, where a substantial 90% of the workforce is involved. When compounded with gender bias and caste discrimination, women often find themselves situated at the bottom of the labour pyramid, which limits their employment choices primarily to the agricultural or the informal sector.

While many papers have discussed and traced the decline in female LFP in the country, through the lens of caste, the results of the studies have been conflicting. Many scholars have discussed the importance of education for women to access employment. It is women from higher castes, due to their economic condition, that have historically had a higher chance to access education, translating into better employment. There have also been studies that reveal how women from lower castes opted for public sector jobs, due to reservation. On the other hand, many scholars have also pointed out how women from the upper castes have the lowest work participation rates, with female LFP increasing as we go down the caste hierarchy. This has been attributed to economic instability among the lower castes, which pushes women into the labour market.

Ashay Kadam and Kingshuk Sarkar extend these arguments to look at how women’s participation in the rural informal sector changes according to their caste positions. Further, the paper explores whether women from lower castes have higher participation in informal activities in depressed labour market conditions which offer limited social mobility to women in any given scenario.

Data from the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 is utilised to scrutinise and analyse the labour force participation at the tehsil level in selected States including Bihar, Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh.

The paper attempts to understand what influences women’s involvement in revenue-generating non-farm economic activities within the informal sector at the tehsil level. It considers variables such as the interplay between high income and the percentage of female-headed households, and low income and the proportion of lower caste households to do so. To elaborate, the authors, through an in-depth analysis, elucidate that women’s LFP in the rural informal economy tends to rise under two primary conditions in the seven States. Firstly, when there is a higher number of lower caste households, and secondly, when there is a high prevalence of female-headed households. However, it is important to note a caveat in the latter scenario: the increased participation occurs predominantly when the female-headed households are economically disadvantaged.

This is because higher economic stability within households decreases the likelihood of women, even in female-headed families, to seek employment.