In the slipstream of my Maalkin: Cascading effect of increasing female employment in urban India

Mukherjee, Nandini and Majumder, Rajarshi (2019): In the slipstream of my Maalkin: Cascading effect of increasing female employment in urban India. Published in: IASSI Quarterly , Vol. 39, No. 2 (2020): pp. 245-265.

Abstract

The world of work is neatly divided into two parts – that of men and women. While men are more into remunerative and recognised work, women shoulder the burden of unpaid and often unrecognised forms of work. Being out of paid formal labour market, they are not paid for their work and hence cannot claim a tangible, monetary contribution to the household. This weakens their bargaining power within the family and in society and prevents their empowerment in true and egalitarian sense. Thus improving Female LFPR and bringing more females into the labour market is a tool for women empowerment, improving GDI & HDI, and reducing GII. This would also raise aggregate work participation and boost the macroeconomic aggregates of the nation along with better health and social indicators. We argue that the impact of increased female employment, especially policy driven formal work, leads to further vacancies in the domestic care-economy space, most often filled up by female domestic worker. Thus a chain effect starts and creates a cascading multiplier impact that improves female work participation much more than the initial and documented rise. In this paper this multiplier impact is sought to be quantified using primary survey data from four cities of India. Results indicate significant cascading effect is present and needs to be tapped to improve gender composition of workforce.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Women & Work; Female LFPR; Paid Domestic Work; Work Participation; Employment; Gender Bias
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J0 - General > J01 - Labor Economics: General; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender ; Non-labor Discrimination; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J21 - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J22 - Time Allocation and Labor Supply; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J23 - Labor Demand; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J24 - Human Capital ; Skills ; Occupational Choice ; Labor Productivity; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs > J30 - General; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J4 - Particular Labor Markets > J46 - Informal Labor Markets; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J8 - Labor Standards: National and International > J81 - Working Conditions

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