The Rising Burden on Poor Women in India

Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons

November 28, 2022 

by Ritu Dewan*

In recent years, India has sharply slipped in global rankings on several economic and social measures: income inequality; gender wage gap; healthcare; education; water and air quality; and in politics it has been downgraded, by major global human rights groups, to a flawed democracy where the people are only partly free.

India ranks 143 out of 146 countries in terms of economic participation and opportunities for women, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index, 2022. India ranks behind China, ranked 37, Brazil, 85, and South Africa, 92, - countries with which it is often compared - as well as its South Asian neighbour Sri Lanka, 122. Pakistan, Afghanistan and are the three countries behind it in the rankings. 

Women who are poor in India work more than 60 hours a week, far longer than the men in their families. They are also paid far less than men. In 2019, prior to the pandemic, a survey revealed that women, especially in poor families, spent nearly five hours a day on unpaid domestic work, three times more than the hours put in by men.

Agriculture continues to remain a major provider of employment in India. The share of agriculture in the country’s $3.5 trillion GDP is around 20 percent. During the pandemic, from 2019 to 2021, agricultural output increased while that of the industrial and services sectors declined.

Last year, nearly two-fifths of the 470 million employed in India worked in the agricultural sector, up from 35% in the fiscal year 2017-18. Overall, nearly three-quarters of rural households depend on agriculture for their livelihood. 

Four out of five employed rural women work in agriculture. Women’s labor accounts for nearly two thirds of India’s foodgrains and other agricultural produce. The economic situation of women in rural India is far worse, especially since the rolling out of a pandemic policy that was neither people-centric nor demand driven in early 2020.

A rural woman’s burden of unpaid work has gotten worse since the pandemic. This is due to cuts in government-funded welfare programs and also due to the laborers who had migrated to urban areas, returning back to their villages during the pandemic.

With more members in a household, women spend more time on cooking, cleaning, fetching water, taking care of the children and the sick and other chores. Also, on days when they cannot get paid employment, their chances of getting work in government-run employment programs is reduced due to cuts in government funding and competition from the returning migrants. Since there is a shortage of food in most poor households, women eat the least amount, often going hungry.    

Meanwhile, the central government has cut funding for social programs including employment schemes, women and child development efforts, educating children and support for widows. Also, the reduction in minimum support prices for some agricultural produce has hurt the overall rural economy.

During the pandemic, many rural women, especially those who were poor and single, were forced to cut back on food consumption, use up their small savings, sell their jewellery and other assets and borrow money to meet their needs. They borrowed from relatives, friends, self-help groups and usurious local money lenders since banks provided little or no credit.  

Some of the adverse effects on children’s education, first seen during the pandemic lockdown, are still visible. The dropout rates of children from school, especially girls, remains at a high level. There is also an increase in the use of child labour and marriage of girls and boys at an earlier age.

It is not surprising that India ranked 107 out of 121 countries on the 2022 Global Hunger Index released last month. The proportion of the population who are undernourished and the prevalence of wasting among children under five has stayed roughly flat since 2000. While the incidence of mortality of children under five has fallen - to around 4% - it remains high compared to the level in other countries. Also, nearly a third of children in India under the age of five are stunted.   

While the situation is grim, especially for the poor in both rural and urban areas, the women in India have been forced to lift most of the burden.  

*Ritu Dewan is Vice President, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics (ISAE). This article is based on data from her keynote address on “Resilient Women, Resilient Agriculture”, at the 82nd annual ISAE national conference, 2022.  

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