How economics will drive women power

Economic forces are impacting gender equality as much as social pressures at this stage in India’s demographic journey. The ground reality may seem different, given daily media tales about female foeticide, sexual harassment and rape, discrimination, and lower payment to women in jobs comparable to those held by men.

But this is a passing phase and we are probably capturing the tail end of a gender injustice story that may well become practically irrelevant as we shift gears economically over the next 25 years. By the time today’s baby girls enter the job market in 2030-35, we are more likely to see gender injustice as a stupid leftover from the past, and economically self-defeating, that a living scourge.

The stats don’t yet point in this direction, though. Work participation rates among women are at 25% in India (against 52% for men as per the 2001 census). The rates are likely to be higher now, at least in urban India. Anecdotal evidence suggests that among today’s upper class twentysomethings, work participation rates will be similar to first world levels. True, even now upper class women bear a disproportionately large part of the child-rearing burden. But this is on the cusp of change because of economics.

The simple truth is that the opportunity cost of taking a break for children is simply unaffordable for most women. Men ruled the roost (and still do, tenuously) only because this wasn’t true in the past. Today, the value of housework has declined.

With the availability of labour-saving gadgets, housework brings less value to the family than before, say researchers Adam Isen and Betsey Stevenson of the University of Pennsylvania in a study on “Women’s Education and Family Behaviour”. With divorce now a greater reality — even in India for upper class women — economic independence trumps all else.

Fewer women will be willing to trade jobs and careers for motherhood as the 21st century progresses. Women who take largish breaks will lose out in today’s jobs-and-salaries sweepstakes as business realities are changing faster than before, and constant upskilling is the norm. The only way to correct this imbalance is to handicap men — possibly through legislation and compulsory sharing of child-rearing burdens. Women know that jobs mean money and power, and they are unlikely to give that up in a hurry.

Before we come to the poorer sections of women, it’s worth acknowledging one more thing: upper class women have a double-advantage in an era when patriarchy isn’t quite dead. For one, they are much better educated.

Two, most bosses are male. Quite apart from the fact that employing more women around them caters to male vanity, men assume — often correctly — that competent women are cheaper and more docile as workers and hence more employable. This may change as the gender composition of the workforce metamorphoses and women face more female competition for the same jobs, but in the short run they hold many of the high cards.

This is not to say work is a cakewalk for women — as sexual harassment and male politicking take their toll. But as employers make workplaces safer for women, there will be no stopping them. Future jobs will also have to be more flexible — something women are more comfortable with compared to men.

Now let’s see how things may be changing at the working class end. The poorest sections have always had to work — both at home and for wages. But with social security schemes like NREGA assuring decent wages, women are becoming economic forces even in the rural sphere. If NREGA-like schemes are perpetuated and expanded, the next generation of the poor will see women as an economic resource, and not merely a social burden.

The incentives for female foeticide will disappear, as the girl child is a future wage earner — just as good as boy, and possibly armed with a higher will to succeed. When women bring in good money, it will change rural power equations and marriage economics. Families will be less willing to marry their girl children off early as they will lose earnings. They will educate them more, and will be able to resist dowry demands.

With the women’s reservation bill now finding higher traction, soon there will be political power backing them in the economic sphere. Women have nowhere to go but up.