percentage of female workers in rural areas as regular salaried employee in lower than in urban areas explain
Answers
Explanation:
Bengaluru: India’s workforce has fewer women than it did six years ago: no more than 18% in rural areas are employed, compared to 25% in 2011-12 and 14% in urban from 15%. However, in urban areas, the percentage of women in salaried jobs has increased from 35.6% in 2004 to 52.1% in 2017, but continue to be under-represented compared to their presence in self-employed or casual work, according to an analysis of the latest government employment data by Azim Premji University researchers.
Both men and women in rural and urban India are out of work, but there is a continuing decline of the number of women in the workforce, the latest government data, collected by the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2017-18, found.
Four months after a leaked newsbreak of national employment data revealed that India’s current unemployment rate was at a 45-year high, the government released the official PLFS report on May 31, 2019.
Understanding the survey
The PLFS report, released after many controversies, provided quarterly estimates on labour market indicators by gender, education and caste. In 2017, PLFS had replaced the National Sample Survey Office’s Employment Unemployment Survey (NSS EUS) that was conducted every five years since 1972-73.
The PLFS report compares current data with NSS EUS, but the two differ in terms of methodology as well as the questions asked of the 433,339 persons surveyed in both rural and urban areas. Some argue that the two surveys remain broadly comparable, while others think it is like comparing apples to oranges.
While the sampling strategy has changed between the two surveys, statistical techniques ensure that the estimates of the NSS EUS and PLFS are comparable. Moreover, the broad questions used to capture labour force status remain unchanged between the surveys.
Women on the job
In 1993, nearly 33% of rural women were employed. By 2011-12, the last time the NSS EUS was conducted, this had fallen by eight percentage points to about 25%. The proportion of urban women dropped one percentage point to 15% in the two decades to 2011-12.
The 2017-18 PLFS estimates indicate a further decline. Rural women’s workforce participation has fallen to 18%, and the participation of urban women is down to 14%.