英语作文材料

One of the daunting tasks facing Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to change the image of the country as one of the worst places for women. While this is mainly attributed to the high incidence of reported crime against women in India, there is another dimension along which India fares badly, and that is, the low and declining labour force participation of women. These two aspects—one social, the other economic—are highly interlinked, and tackling the challenges on the economic front may help alleviate some of the social problems as well.

A 2012 global poll by Thomson Reuters Foundation ranks India as “the fourth most dangerous” nation in the world for women. This international perception is corroborated by statistics produced by the National Crime Records Bureau. For 2013, data from the agency show that there were 309,546 crimes against women, of which a large fraction were instances of abuse by a husband or his relatives.

In a recent paper, my colleague, Sita Slavov, and I explore the issue of domestic violence in India using data from the National Family Health Survey and the India Human Development Survey. Our research suggests that domestic violence is widespread in India, with women at all levels of family income being subject to abuse by either their spouse or family. However, women who were more empowered in terms of being better educated, having a job and earning high incomes, or having wealth, were less likely to face abuse than women who had lower levels of education, poor earnings capabilities and lower levels of independent wealth.

Given these findings, a troubling observation from the data i s the lack of education and employment amongst this nationally representative sample of women in India. Around 46 per cent of women in these surveys reported no education, 16 per cent reported primary educational attainment and 29 per cent reported secondary education. Less than 10 per cent reported any investments in higher education. In terms of employment, only about 26 per cent of women reported that they were employed, and among the employed, a large fraction had low wages, part-time or seasonal jobs. Average annual wages for women were approximately Rs 2,600. Finally, more than 50 per cent reported that they were married before the age of 18.

A critical step towards remedying the situation is to put in place policies that would help women become economically empowered and break the mould of dependence on the family.

While the Indian economy has been expanding rapidly over the last few decades, labour force participation rates of women in India have been declining. Over the last 25 years, there has been a 23 per cent decline in the female labour force participation rate. In 2010, as per data from the National Sample Survey, women’s labour force participation in urban areas was at 14.6 per cent and in rural areas at 26.5 per cent. This is in stark contrast to developed economies such as the United States, where the labour force participation rate for women has increased and currently stands at 57 per cent.

As per the International Labour Organization, India ranks a low 120 out of 131 countries along the fem ale labour force participation index. In developed economies, women are increasingly obtaining top jobs at firms. However, in India, the vast majority of women are still employed on family farms, as domestic help or in otherwise unprofessional jobs that lack career prospects.

What policies can the Modi government adopt to improve these trends? Experience from other countries suggests that women’s labour force participation depends upon a whole host of factors, including labour market conditions, available child care arrangements, and the division of household responsibilities. This is evident in India’s recent experience with the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) programme. Research by Dreze and Oldiges (2009) and others provides evidence that participation rates for women have increased over the course of the programme. However, Khera and Nayak (2011) find that, even though NREGA guarantees employment at minimum wages for 100 days, women were often turned away in favour of men. There was also resistance to women’s participation since often it was unacceptable that women and men would earn the same wage.

While these barriers to employment, even in a federal government programme, are interesting in their own right, another big hurdle to the participation of women was the lack of childcare facilities. The Act requires that when there are more than five children under the age of six, a female worker has to be appointed and put in charge of the children at the worksite. However, less than 3 percent of the worksites had child care facilities. Perhaps for these and other reasons, and despite the Ministry of Rural Development’s stated objective of giving priority to women,total wage payments to women have been less than those to men and have been declining over the last five years.

With regard to programme design, valuable lessons can be gleaned from the experiences of other countries. In the United States, tax policy has often been used to create the right work incentives. Programmes like the Earned Income Tax Credit benefit single mothers and have resulted in an increase in their participation rates. Such programmes provide a wage supplement to low wage workers so that for every dollar earned in the labour market, the government provides a fraction of the dollar as an additional tax benefit.

This supplements household income at low income levels and is a powerful way to draw people into employment and help them fight their way out of poverty. The size of the credit varies, depending upon whether the worker is married or single and the number of children in the household. The credit operates at both federal as well as at state level. Finally, the credit is refundable—even if a worker owes no taxes, he or she can take advantage of the credit. Such an experiment is clearly worth trying in India where women may be incentivized to enter the labour force to supplement family incomes.

Another tax credit programme in the US that has been shown to increase labour supply for women is the Child Care Tax Credit. This is provided to employed workers who face child care expenses when they place their children in commercial daycare or preschool programmes. This progr amme helps families meet these expenses while at the same time creating the right work incentives. Some other countries, such as Singapore, have also experienced success in similar programmes.

Another problem India faces is simply the lack of high-skilled jobs. Labour force participation rates exhibit a U-shaped relationship between education and participation. Partipation rates are very high for the least educated (illiterate) and the best educated women, but they are low for women who have low to intermediate levels of education. However, even women with high levels of education are often unable to find quality jobs because the proportion of these jobs in urban areas has declined over time.

Between 1987 and 2009, white-collar service jobs declined from 19 per cent to 17 per cent in urban areas, while the proportion of graduates in the working age population increased from 11 to 21 per cent. Therefore, there is a need to create jobs that utilize the high skills acquired by these new entrants to the labour market. To this end, labour reform is needed across the board in India. Under the current system of laws, firms face substantial red tape when it comes to hiring and firing workers. This burdensome system of regulation, coupled with prevalent corruption, has resulted in overall less productivity. Less rigidity in terms of regulations and th e right kinds of investment incentives could spur job creation so that this pool of qualified workers can be absorbed in a growing economy.

The fact is that women’s productive participation in the economy is critical to sustaining growth. As per an estimat e by the UNESCAP, if India’s female labour force participation rates matched that of the US, India could experience significant increases in economic growth rates. Further, with economic independence, women can improve their bargaining power within the family, which is critical for the well-being of both women and children. When it comes to domestic violence and other forms of abuse of which women are victims, legislation can only go so far. True justice can come from a society that encourages women’s econo mic freedom and enables them to fight for their own rights.

Until things slowly changed during the last century, women's participation in the labor force was limited by traditional cultural, educational, and legal practices. Women's work outside of home and marriage was restricted to a handful of occupations such as domestic service, factory work, farm work, and teaching. Over the past several decades, the women's labor force in the United States and throughout the world has experienced many changes. Women's labor force participation rates are significantly higher today than they were in the 1970s. Throughout that period, women have increasingly attained higher levels of education and experienced an increase in their earnings as a proportion of men's earnings. In addition to highlighting the past, present, and future of women in the workforce, this Spotlight presents BLS data on the ty pes of activities that women spend their time doing during an average week, how they choose to spend their hard-earned money, and the nature of fatal injuries in the workplace.

On average, including women who were employed and those who were not employed, young women (between the ages of 15 to 19) spent less time doing household activities tha n did women in other age groups. Women aged 65 and over spent more time participating in leisure activities than did women in the younger age groups. On average, among women aged 25 and over, those with a bachelor's degree or more education spent more time working than they did doing household activities, while women with less than a high school education spent more time doing household activities than they did working.