Analysis of Gender Profile in Export Oriented Industries in India Bansari Nag
Introduction The links between gender, trade and development are increasingly being recognised. Women all over the world are getting more employed as well as exploited - at the far end of the global supply chain. It might be argued that women benefit in terms of status and income from the process of trade liberalisation, but the hidden costs of new trade regimes, may outweigh the benefits. The linkage between trade liberalisation and women s development through employment generation and poverty eradication is significantly dependant on whether informal sector is also growing fast and providing more opportunities with decent work. To estimate the actual benefit and costs the prerequisite is to understand the level and profile of women workforce in the trade oriented industries in its upstream and downstream industries.
Objective To asses the extent of increase in employment in identified export oriented industries To scrutinise the changing nature of work status of women To understand how women are engaged and the value chain in terms of concentration in various occupation within the industries (as per National classification of Occupation) To estimate wage differentials and mode of payment for women workers To examine whether social security and collective bargaining power (in terms of trade union membership) has increased over time. Special focus to asses the status of casual workers
Methodology Identification of export oriented industries (NIC Code) from average export revenue as percentage of Net Sales. Past studies have also been referred to identify sectors especially agriculture and services. Two large sample NSS data on employment have been used to do the analysis Individual and household characteristics were analysed along with the work profile of the individuals. Parameters were compared to see the change between the period 1999/00 and 2004/05
Selected Industries/Services NIC Major Industries/Services 05 Fishing 13 Mining of metal Ores 14 Other Mining and quarrying 15 Manufacture of Food products and beverages 16 Manufacture of Tobacco Products 17 Manufacture of Textiles 18 Manufacture of Wearing Apparel 19 Leather and Leather products 20 Manufacture of Wood products 21 manufacture of paper and paper products 22 Publishing and Printing 24 Manufacture of Chemicals 25 Manufacture of Rubber and Plastic Products 28 manufacture of Fabricated Metal products 36 Manufacture of Furniture 51 Wholesale Trade and Commission Trade 55 Hotels and Restaurants 62 Air Transport 64 Post, Courier and Telecommunication 72 Computer and related Activities 8511 Hospital Activities Female concentration at the 5-digit NIC level is also calculated for each 2-digit level NIC
Selected Agricultural Sectors NIC Description 01111 Growing of food grains 01112 Growing of oilseeds 01113 Growing of cotton and vegetable textile plants 01115 Growing of sugarcane and sugar beet 01121 Growing of vegetables 01132 Growing of tea As large number of people are engaged in agriculture, sectors are chosen at the 5-digit level directly so that we get sufficient sample size for estimation
Employment Trend Total number of females engaged in the selected sectors was 70 million in 1999-00 and it rose to 76 million in 2004-05 with a CAGR of 2.08%. This consists of more than 55% of working women in the country. In 2004-05, 56 per cent of rural males and 33 per cent of rural females belonged to the labour force. The corresponding proportions in the urban areas were 57 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively. During 1999/00-2004/05, female labour force in India as well as their work participation increased roughly by 3 percentage point both in rural and urban areas.
Employment Trend Large number of women work as own account worker or unpaid family worker. There is a significant jump of female own account worker in agriculture sector during the selected period. Other sectors which experienced an increase are mining, leather products, etc. Drop in female own account worker is visible in food and beverages, tobacco products, wearing apparels, wood products, chemical products, plastics, furniture, hotels and restaurants, hospital services etc.
Concentration of female workers In some sectors such as growing of oilseeds, textiles, apparel, chemical products, hospital activities the percentage of female employment when compared to overall employment increased in post 2000 period. Female concentration in air transport sector has gone down in recent times. Highest concentration is observed in tobacco sector (74%) followed by tea (47%). In case of textile women are mostly involved in weaving, manufacture of cotton and cotton mixture and silk fabrics, spinning and fiber blending, embroidery and zari work and manufacturing of coir products. New sub sectors such as value added courier services, telecommunication services are now attracting lot of women. In computer and related activities women are concentrated in software development, data processing, database maintenance, multimedia, website maintenance, etc. Women are less involved in hardware industry, maintenance of computing machines, etc.
Findings There is a declining trend of female unpaid family workers in agriculture excluding tea. The decline in unpaid family work is seen in comparison with a rise in own account workers in the same sectors In agriculture, there is a rising trend of regular wage workers especially in cash crops with the exception of tea sector. Large increase of regular wage employment among females are observed during the selected period in fishery, mining, food and beverages, textile, wood products, fabricated metal products, furniture, trading activities, hospital sector etc. In textile sector (both NIC 17 and 18) large increase in regular wage employment is observed among male workers. However, for females the increase is much lower. The alarming drop in regular salaried employment in sectors like hotel and restaurants, air transport, post and courier and is replaced by significant rise of casual workers. The trend is similar both in case of males and females.
Findings Casualisation among female workers decreased in sectors such as in agriculture, mining, fishing, food and beverages, leather, chemicals, plastics, etc. Opposite trends are observed in most of the sectors especially in computer, courier, air transport, wearing apparel, textiles, publishing and printing. Large increase of female casual workers is observed in wearing apparels and hospital activities but in case of the former sector the percentage of male casual workers has come down. Thus, one can argue that more regular employment for males in wearing apparels has come with more casual employment for females.
Findings Age structure: Several sectors register working age which is 14 or below. In the mining sectors of metal ores, there is an alarming rise in girl child labour. In 2004-05, around 31% of females engaged in the sector are children. In tobacco production also around 11% of all females are below 14 years of age. Other sectors with high incidence of child labour are textile, publishing and printing, manufacture of furniture, etc. In fishing and agriculture as well there exists large number of child labourers. In general 45-50% females in all sectors are mainly in the age group of 20-39 years and another 25%-30% in 40-59 years. In case of computer related activities 95% females are in the age group of 20-39 years.
Findings Work Status There has been a huge decline in the number of casual workers in the agricultural sector with the exception in growing of cotton and vegetable textile plants during the study period. The fall in the percentage of female casual workers has been supplemented by a rise in the percentage of own account workers and unpaid family workers. This indicates that the vulnerability of the workers remains and a fall in the percentage of casual employment is of little importance. Similar is the trend in the manufacturing sector as well. In the case of mining (metal ores) we find that female casual employment fell from 93% to around 3% but OAW and UFW rose from 0% to 96%. The opposite case is seen in printing and publishing sector where female casual workers accounted for 22% of the total employment in 1999-00 which rose to 96% during 2004-05.
Vulnerability of Women Workers have not changed The indicator of vulnerable employment calculates the sum of ownaccount workers and contributing family workers as a share of total employment. Contributing family workers and own-account workers are less likely to have formal work arrangements, and often carry a higher economic risk, which allows for the usage of the indicator on vulnerable employment in an assessment of decent work. If the proportion of vulnerable workers is sizeable, it may be an indication of widespread poverty. The poverty connection arises because workers in the vulnerable statuses lack the social protection and safety nets to guard against times of low economic demand and often are incapable of generating sufficient savings for themselves and their families to offset these times. -ILO, Geneva, 2008
Findings Other issues During the period 1999/00 to 2004/05 the overall wage rate registers increase with the exception of the rural females. However, the increment is not symmetric. In overall terms, male wage has increased more than female wage rate. In 2004/05, rural female workers in the agricultural sector earn 23% less than their male counterpart. In the non-agricultural sector rural females earn 42% less than men and in the urban areas it is 25% lower. Large gap in rural male-female wage rate is visible in mining and quarrying despite there is significant increase in the wage rate during the period of study.
Findings Other issues Number of people without safety nets is significantly lower in tea sector as compared other agricultural sector. In fishery sectors hardly people are covered by safety nets In the textile sector, situation has improved significantly in case of apparels as females without social security has drastically come down. In services, except trading and hotel & restaurants, female workers are significantly covered by social security. Safety net coverage for women is very low in mining, food & beverages sector, leather, wood products, plastic etc Unionisation among females (regular employment) are high in tea sector. It is also high in service sectors. Mineral and textile sectors do not have high level of unionization. Sectorwise NCO suggest that there is not much change in the occupation profile of women and they are still crowded in the lower strata of the value chain.
Conclusion Globalization and trade liberalization do not eliminate automatically existing inequalities in access to resources, power and decisionmaking between men and women in society The study shows that wage inequality between men and women has increased in the export oriented industries. Female s access to social security is still low. Casual workers in cash crops have come down and replaced by mainly OAW and UFW. In sectors like textile, women casual workers have increased in percentage terms (compared to male counter part) International trade has opened opportunities for employment in some sectors but it is observed that there are huge costs involved in terms of vulnerable employment and rising inequality. Women s employment is still largely temporary and underpaid.