IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ijlaec/v60y2017i4d10.1007_s41027-017-0085-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Decline in the Labour Force Participation of Rural Women in India: Taking a Long-Run View

Author

Listed:
  • Amaresh Dubey

    (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

  • Wendy Olsen

    (University of Manchester)

  • Kunal Sen

    (University of Manchester)

Abstract

The significant fall in the labour force participation of rural women between 2004 and 2011 has been an issue that has generated considerable academic interest. In this paper, the authors look at thirty years of comparable NSS data from 1983 to 2011 of rural women’s participation in the labour force using a variety of definitions of female labour force participation that capture both market and non-market work. The authors find a long-term slow decline in the participation of rural women in wage work and self-employment, especially among dalit and adivasi women in poor agricultural labourer households. The more recent sharp decline in female labour force participation (FLP) in 2004–2011 has occurred both in market and non-market work, and across most categories of economically active women. Our analysis highlights the somewhat contradictory behaviour of rural FLP across different definitions and time periods, and across different correlates of female labour force participation, and suggests that more complex factors are at work than has usually been discussed in the literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Amaresh Dubey & Wendy Olsen & Kunal Sen, 2017. "The Decline in the Labour Force Participation of Rural Women in India: Taking a Long-Run View," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 60(4), pages 589-612, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ijlaec:v:60:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1007_s41027-017-0085-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s41027-017-0085-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41027-017-0085-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s41027-017-0085-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. The World Bank,, 2010. "India's Employment Challenge: Creating Jobs, Helping Workers," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198063513.
    2. Indira Hirway, 2015. "Unpaid Work and the Economy: Linkages and Their Implications," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_838, Levy Economics Institute.
    3. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon & Jeemol Unni, 2001. "Education and Women's Labour Market Outcomes in India," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 173-195.
    4. Claudia Goldin, 2014. "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(4), pages 1091-1119, April.
    5. Vinoj Abraham, 2008. "Employment growth in rural India: Distress driven?," Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum Working Papers 404, Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum, India.
    6. Sunita Sanghi & A Srija & Shirke Shrinivas Vijay, 2015. "Decline in Rural Female Labour Force Participation in India: A Relook into the Causes," Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers, , vol. 40(3), pages 255-268, September.
    7. Neff, Daniel & Sen, Kunal & Kling, Veronika, 2012. "The Puzzling Decline in Rural Women's Labor Force Participation in India: A Reexamination," GIGA Working Papers 196, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    8. Kapsos, Steven. & Bourmpoula, Evangelia. & Silberman, Andrea., 2014. "Why is female labour force participation declining so sharply in India?," ILO Working Papers 994949190702676, International Labour Organization.
    9. Srinivasan, T.N., 2010. "Employment and India's development and reforms," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 82-106, March.
    10. Klasen, Stephan & Pieters, Janneke, 2012. "Push or Pull? Drivers of Female Labor Force Participation during India's Economic Boom," IZA Discussion Papers 6395, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Indrani Mazumdar & Neetha N, 2011. "Gender Dimensions: Employment Trends in India, 1993-94 to 2009-10," Working Papers id:4502, eSocialSciences.
    12. Sonalde Desai & Prem Vashishtha & Omkar Joshi, 2015. "Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act: A Catalyst for Rural Transformation," Working Papers id:7259, eSocialSciences.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vidhya Unnikrishnan & Kunal Sen, 2020. "Old-age pensions and female labour supply in India," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-90, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Shivakar Tiwari & Surinder Kumar, 2019. "Neo-liberal Macroeconomic Policy and Structural Transformation of Indian Economy: Impact on Income, Employment and Distribution," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 62(2), pages 219-238, June.
    3. Deshpande, Ashwini & Singh, Jitendra, 2021. "Dropping Out, Being Pushed Out or Can’t Get in? Decoding Declining Labour Force Participation of Indian Women," IZA Discussion Papers 14639, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Rajesh Gupta & Vaibhav Bhamoriya, 2021. "‘Give Me Some Rail’: An Enquiry into Puzzle of Declining Female Labour Force Participation Rate," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 46(1), pages 7-23, February.
    5. Bina Agarwal, 2020. "Labouring for Livelihoods: Gender, Productivity and Collectivity," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(1), pages 21-37, March.
    6. Bina Agarwal, 2018. "The challenge of gender inequality," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 35(1), pages 3-12, April.
    7. Deshpande, Ashwini & Khanna, Shantanu & Walia, Daksh, 2023. "An Indian Enigma? Labour Market Impacts of the World's Largest Livelihoods Program," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1311, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    8. Jihye Kim & Wendy Olsen & Arkadiusz Wiśniowski, 2020. "A Bayesian Estimation of Child Labour in India," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 13(6), pages 1975-2001, December.
    9. Koyel Sarkar, 2022. "Can status exchanges explain educational hypogamy in India?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 46(28), pages 809-848.
    10. Ashwini Deshpande & Naila Kabeer, 2021. "Norms that matter: Exploring the distribution of women's work between income generation, expenditure-saving, and unpaid domestic responsibilities in India," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-130, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Thomas Chambers & Ayesha Ansari, 2018. "Ghar Mein KÄ m Hai (There is Work in the House)," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 13(2), pages 141-163, August.
    12. Ashwini Deshpande & Jitendra Singh, 2021. "Dropping Out, Being Pushed out or Can't Get In? Decoding Declining Labour Force Participation of Indian Women," Working Papers 65, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sanghamitra Kanjilal-Bhaduri & Francesco Pastore, 2018. "Returns to Education and Female Participation Nexus: Evidence from India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 61(3), pages 515-536, September.
    2. Chaudhary, Ruchika. & Verick, Sher., 2014. "Female labour force participation in India and beyond," ILO Working Papers 994867893402676, International Labour Organization.
    3. Ashwini Deshpande & Naila Kabeer, 2019. "(In)Visibility, Care and Cultural Barriers: The Size and Shape of Women's Work in India," Working Papers 10, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    4. Ashwini Deshpande & Naila Kabeer, 2019. "(In)Visibility, Care and Cultural Barriers: The Size and Shape of Women's Work in India," Working Papers 1016, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    5. Deshpande, Ashwini & Singh, Jitendra, 2021. "Dropping Out, Being Pushed Out or Can’t Get in? Decoding Declining Labour Force Participation of Indian Women," IZA Discussion Papers 14639, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Ashwini Deshpande & Jitendra Singh, 2021. "Dropping Out, Being Pushed out or Can't Get In? Decoding Declining Labour Force Participation of Indian Women," Working Papers 65, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    7. Kanjilal-Bhaduri, Sanghamitra & Pastore, Francesco, 2018. "Returns to Education and Female Work Force Participation Nexus: Evidence from India," GLO Discussion Paper Series 162, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    8. Maryam Sabreen & Deepak Kumar Behera, 2020. "Changing Structure of Rural Employment in Bihar: Issues and Challenges," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(3), pages 833-845, September.
    9. Amrita Datta & Tanuka Endow & Balwant Singh Mehta, 2020. "Education, Caste and Women’s Work in India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(2), pages 387-406, June.
    10. Indrajit Bairagya & Tulika Bhattacharya & Pragati Tiwari, 2021. "Does Vocational Training Promote Female Labour Force Participation? An Analysis for India," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 15(1), pages 149-173, February.
    11. Isha Gupta, 2020. "Fertility And Mothers’ Labour Force Participation In Rural India," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0267, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    12. Nancy Sebastian, 2019. "(Re)investigation of Rural Women’s Labour Supply in India: The Impact of Household Poverty Status—A Panel Data Analysis," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 13(4), pages 436-469, November.
    13. Balakarushna Padhi & Udaya S. Mishra & Urmi Pattanayak, 2019. "Gender-Based Wage Discrimination in Indian Urban Labour Market: An Assessment," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 62(3), pages 361-388, September.
    14. Neethu Thomas & D. Shyjan, 2022. "Outsiders of the Labour Force in Kerala: Demystifying Deterrents of Female Work," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 65(2), pages 445-461, June.
    15. repec:ilo:ilowps:486789 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Bilal Nabeel Falah & Marcelo Bérgolo & Arwa Abu Hashhash & Mohammad Hattawy & Iman Saadeh, 2019. "The Effect of Labor-Demand Shocks on Women’s Participation in the Labor Force: Evidence from Palestine," Working Papers PMMA 2019-08, PEP-PMMA.
    17. Sonalde Desai & Omkar Joshi, 2019. "The Paradox of Declining Female Work Participation in an Era of Economic Growth," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 62(1), pages 55-71, March.
    18. Pushpendra Singh & Falguni Pattanaik, 2020. "Unfolding unpaid domestic work in India: women’s constraints, choices, and career," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-13, December.
    19. Mehrotra, Santosh & Parida, Jajati K., 2017. "Why is the Labour Force Participation of Women Declining in India?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 360-380.
    20. Deshpande, Ashwini & Goel, Deepti & Khanna, Shantanu, 2018. "Bad Karma or Discrimination? Male–Female Wage Gaps Among Salaried Workers in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 331-344.
    21. Athary Janiso & Prakash Kumar Shukla & Bheemeshwar Reddy A, 2021. "What Explains Gender Gap in Unpaid Household and Care Work in India?," Papers 2106.15376, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2021.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:ijlaec:v:60:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1007_s41027-017-0085-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.