Women across the world are beginning to leave workplaces for the first time in many years as per several reports.
Women globally and in India are beginning to disappear from workplaces as the COVID-19 aftermath hits. Increased household work, especially childcare, contributes to keeping women at home instead of progressing in their careers.
Workplace Exodus in the APAC region?
LinkedIn Opportunity Index 2021 found that Indian and Chinese women enjoy higher freedoms. However, in workplaces, the overall outlook is still grim. 62% of women in the Asia-Pacific region believe the economic situation since 2020 is unsatisfactory for working conditions.
67% of female working professionals are reported to react negatively to job searching in post-covid markets. India (89%) and the Philippines (71%) saw the greatest shift in employment struggles caused by the pandemic slowdown.
1 in 3 Asian women says inequalities at home hold them back from seeking career promotions and higher pay. This goes to say that the largest emerging markets in the world still suffer from severe social and structural barriers.
The impact of growing incomes on emerging markets:
One characteristic of growing markets is that historically, a large number of women who stepped into work did so to make ends meet. Now that homes can sustainably survive on single incomes, women may be returning to child-rearing duties.
The lack of legislation aimed at employing rural women or compensating unpaid care workers is a growing issue. As a welcome development, some Indian states introduced schemes to pay for women in unpaid care work.
What’s with the work gap in India?
Indian Women made up more than half of undergraduate degree graduations in 2018-19, yet only 19.9% of the labour force is female. This can be attributed to large gaps in both attitudes and policy aimed at empowering women in workplaces. Women face far more barriers to entry when seeking employment. These hurdles come not from individual mindsets but are largely cultural and structural hindrances.
Indian Women at Work:
At a time when employment as a whole begins to slump in India, women faced the worst of it over the past few years. COVID-19 and the subsequent economic fallout make jobs harder to access for young ladies trying to break into the workforce. Women from marginalised communities suffer from social and financial barriers.
Regional and cultural inequalities are widespread, evident from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2020’s findings. Women in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are more likely to find safe employment across the board. Working late or in “morally inappropriate” jobs is also safer in the three states. The same report finds that Odisha, Meghalaya and Chattisgarh are amongst the most unsafe for women to work.
Restrictions such as tasks women are allowed to do in manufacturing jobs also contribute to the disparity. For example, men are most commonly allowed to lift upwards of 40 kilos while women usually max out at 30. In states like Jharkhand and Bihar, 49 processes stay off-limits for women. On the other hand, women in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana State have no restrictions.
“My daughter who is in Grade 1 was in her Hindi online class. They were asked to draw a hard worker, and without hesitation, she drew me. Feeling very pleased with myself I went to my start-up office which is a co-working space. It struck me that there were precisely three women in the 25 seats in the bay. Not at all unusual for Delhi where the urban women’s employment rate is less than 10 per cent.” said Simran Khara, a Delhi-based entrepreneur to News18.com
Global threats to women’s employment:
McKinsey reports addressing inequalities in the workplace could add USD 13 Trillion to global GDP in as little as 8 years. The backward slide that many nations are currently making will arrest both financial and social development goals. Nations like India and China will hope to keep women in skilled employment as they make the move to become global business hubs.
“The pandemic had a near-immediate effect on women’s employment. One in four women is considering leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers versus one in five men. While all women have been impacted, three major groups have experienced some of the largest challenges: working mothers, women in senior management positions, and Black women. This disparity came across as particularly stark with parents of kids under ten: the rate at which women in this group were considering leaving was ten percentage points higher than for men” said a recent McKinsey report.
