GIVE A WOMAN THE RIGHT WORK ENVIRONMENT

START THIS YEAR, AND IT WILL TURN AROUND THE ECONOMIC FORTUNES OF THE COUNTRY

- ASHWINI DESHPANDE

"IS this where we sign up for jobs?" It was the last sentence I expected to hear in the rural hinterlands of Uttar Pradesh from a mother of two young children, one a toddler clutching at her saree, the other an infant in her arms. She had persuaded her husband to bring her to the village site where we were doing fieldwork. This woman was no exception, as we subsequently discovered over several months. Young or old, married or not, women - who now have at least a middle school education - are eager to get into paid work opportunities, either via regular salaried jobs or via starting a small business of their own, or even gig work.

This palpable willingness to work even at low wages and in poor working conditions - despite crushing constraints of domestic chores, a lack of supporting infrastructure like tap water, piped gas or regular power supply, poor child- and eldercare facilities, and the absence of decent transportation between villages demonstrates two things. One, Indian women's ability to withstand challenges is exceptional and cannot be gauged through conventional data on labour force participation rates. Two, this flies in the face of mainstream academic wisdom that Indian women are unwilling to enter paid work, or are dropping out, for fear of sexual violence on the street and at the workplace, combined with family/community disapproval besides care responsibilities.

Are they really unwilling to enter paid work or dropping out never to re-enter? My research with Jitendra Singh reveals two features of the Indian labour market. One, women enter and exit paid work several times in short four-monthly intervals. In surveys when we ask women who are currently not employed about their willingness to enter paid work, an overwhelming majority are willing to work full- or part-time but regularly (i.e. for most of the year), provided work is available close to home.