Women’s Day 2023: Delhi witnesses the highest fall in women's workforce in the post-COVID period

Amrita Ghose, 27, a fashion designer from Kolkata, recalled that she refused to relocate to Delhi when she got her first job offer letter. She had no option but to wait. Priyanka Agarwal, 32, an IT professional from Pune, has a similar story. Not only them, but many girls from different cities in India have the opinion that they are open to relocate to any city in India for their job, but not Delhi.

The Worker Population Ratio (WPR) (in per cent) on usual status for females of age 15 years and above has decreased from 16.1 per cent in 2018-19 to 12.9 per cent in 2020-21, while women's workforce participation has gone up on a pan-India level, shows recent data produced by the Ministry of Labour and Employment at the Parliament.

Decoding the data 

While on one hand, women's workforce participation has gone up in most of the states, Delhi not only accounts for the highest fall, it is also the state with one of the lowest women's workforce participation. Bihar and Delhi are the only states with less than 15 percent women in the WPR in 2021-22, according to the data.

While women's participation grew from nearly 23 per cent to 31 per cent between 2018-19 and 2021-22 on a pan-India basis, it fell in Delhi.

As per the National Crime Records Bureau Crime Report 2021, released in August 2022, recorded crimes against women in Delhi went up from 10,093 in 2020 to 14,277 in 2021, thereby recording a rise of more than 40 per cent. Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy (IWWAGE) has highlighted a correlation between crime rates and women’s participation in the workforce. Among working women, "female guilt’ leads to a higher incidence of intimate partner violence.  

As per the 2020–21 Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) for women and girls above 15 is 32.5 per cent, whereas the Labour Force Participation Rate for males in the same age group is 77 per cent. IWWAGE is an organization primarily focusing on facilitating the agenda of women’s economic empowerment.

IWWAGE analysed the monthly trends of formal labour force jobs through EPFO data for a year-long period from October 2021 to October 2022, highlighting that the monthly share of women’s registration in the recovered jobs has constantly remained lower, 28per cent lesser than men's registration. This indicates that the jobs recovered in the year have not been evenly distributed.

Reasons behind the fall 

Apart from the concern for security, other factors like the growing education gap, gender bias contributed to the falling number of women workforce participation in Delhi.

Lesser opportunities in the formal sector

In case of Delhi, except for a handful of jobs in the formal sector meant for highly educated women, the other opportunities are mostly in the informal sector, pointed out IWWAGE. "These informal sector jobs are mostly either home-based work (women making few handicraft items) for the manufacturing sector or poorly paid service sector jobs like the services of domestic workers," said Kanupriya Verma, Chief Manager, HR, Addverb Technologies.

Delhi is surrounded by many semi-urban and rural pockets but fails to create employment opportunities for women from those areas. "The education imbalance between rural and urban populations is one of the main reasons behind this decline. Girls in rural areas are less likely to complete their schooling due to unhygienic school conditions or a lack of proper sanitation facilities. As a result, they become ineligible for higher education, missing out on better employment opportunities and sources of income," added Shubhangi Rastogi, founder and CEO of Mind Alcove, a mental well-being platform that works closely with women to overcome the challenges at workplaces. 

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Household demand

According to the experts, the recent pandemic and a host of other factors have led to increased demands on women to attend to the growing needs of their families. As a result, women might be seeking jobs that offer more flexibility, reduced timings, and the ability to work remotely rather than going to a workplace. "In order to reduce travel, women from low-income homes frequently choose employment nearby. In order to fulfil these tasks, women often avoid working outside because they are also in charge of taking care of the elderly, children, and household chores," said Verma.

To this, Shruti Mishra, Senior Vice President at Flags Communications Pvt.Ltd, added, "A recent decline in women workforce in capital city can be attributed to covid lockdown according to me. When everyone sat at home, someone had to take care of the entire family, and who else than a woman?" 

Lack of amenities

Research shows that childcare amenities like creches at work can really help attract women to the workforce, but even in offices in the capital city, such infrastructure is rare. As of June 30, 2022, only 4,947 creches were functional, according to a reply in the Lok Sabha; as many as 12 states and union territories reported no functional creches. The expenditure on the Anganwadi Services Scheme fluctuated between 2019 and 2022, but the expenditure has remained lower than the revised estimates for the scheme.