Inequality In India In Workforce.

Arre beta yeh job chood de. Ab toh tu ghar ka kaam sambhaalna sekh le. Shaadi ke baad job thodi na karegi. Aur pampara hai Mishra Khandaan ki. Log kya kahange bahu ki kamai par je tahe hai. Golden words every girl is subjected to. But why.

In India, a women's primary duty is to take care of her family, be that her own or her natal family. A women's worth is measured by her efficiency to do homely chores, not by the qualifications and degrees that she has earned.

The reason for women's inequality in the workforce remains rooted in cultural norms and a family's reputation. Some families yet are firmly rooted in the ideology that a family should never live on a women's earning. For them living on a women's earning is no less than a blackish being spread on their face or is equated as a shameful act.

This problem of women not working is not the very latest problem. It is rooted long back when labour was gendered. Creating a patriarchal caste-based society, where the dichotomy of the upper caste women was laid down. According to the laid down protocol, the upper caste women or the honourable women were only subjected to do homely chores and take care of the family. While the women who used to work outside their homes were not considered honourable. These women were mainly dasis or slaves.

But this inforced dichotomy wasn't enforced in the 4th century and the Mughal and pre Mughal era. The Sangam literature which was produced during the 1 and 4 century very clearly depicts women doing jobs like accountants, office administrators, and judges. Even in the Mughal era Chand Bibi and Tarabai are some examples of warrior queens in Mughal India. Razia Sultan was the first and only female ruler of the Delhi Sultanate and Rudrama Devi was monarch ruler of the Kakatiya Dynasty, Deccan Plateau. The ancient texts also show the evidence of female traders like Jibhabu and Begum Samru who made and managed money. Though historians have failed to quote if these women were exceptions or not. But what can be inferred from this is that at least there was a gendered ideology of paid work.

This ideology of non-gendered biasedness in work underwent a change when in the 18 century the work was gruelling and the working conditions were dangerous for women to work. And then was the time when a man's income was the primary income and a women's paid work income was secondary. But later when formal education was provided and after the two world wars, it became more acceptable in the west for women to work and earn for their families. The statistical data shows that in the countries like Britain, The United States, Latvis women are the primary bread earners,

But in India, a woman working outside her house was still unacceptable. Since 1921 women's participation in the workforce is only declining. Surprisingly on 20 percentile of Indian women are in the paid workforce and a cherry on the top is that most of them are employed in the informal sector with the least job and growth opportunities.

The other reason for fewer women in the work sector is because women are not allowed to work after having children. And the women who do work after having children are often called too selfish or career-oriented because of whom the children suffer.

The women who don't have children aren't also not permitted to work because people strongly associate a family's pride and honour with women not working and merely doing the homely chores to please her husband and her inlaws.

Chiefly the women working and earning for themselves act more like an excuse for husbands to domestically violate and divorce their wives. And the women who do not work at all, are more financially dependent on their husbands for money, which again is a reason for the high prevalence of domestic violence in India.

Though changing the notion from keeping women at home and subjecting them to do homely choose to permit them to work sounds more like a utopian vision which is tough to achieve but not impossible.