Written by Nishi Verma
The current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic prevailing in the country has created a drastic change in labour relations and processes.
A small portion of the workforce in the world economy is in the organised sector, which has relatively better social security and society standards, leaving the rest of the workforce in the economy to face harsh labour conditions.
In this context, historically, women have been discriminated against in multiple aspects, such as pay, opportunities for social upliftment and lack of promotion opportunities. This practice is restricted to the developing or under-developed parts of the world and the women working in informal sectors in the developed economy.
To discuss the role of women workers in a neoliberal and neoconservative system, the Gender Impact Studies Centre (GISC) at IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute invited Prof Shruti Tambe to speak on Women Workers in India: Informality, Survival, and Resilience for #WebPolicyTalk as part of the series The State of Gender Equality #GenderGaps.
As the discussion started, Ritika Gupta, Assistant Director IMPRI, introduced the guest speaker Prof Shruti Tambe and the chair for the discussion with Prof Vibhuti Patel.
Prof Patel opened the discussion by discussing how the topic has relevance on a broader spectrum and emphasised the significance of hearing from a renowned sociologist such as Prof Tambe. She invited Prof Tambe to give her views on the topic at hand.
Women Are Always At Work
Prof Tambe began her talk by mentioning the importance of discussing the issues faced by women workers in the post-pandemic period.
The sociological and economic definition of work was re-defined by the feminist intervention that has allowed the work done by women in households to be categorised as work, contrary to the traditional definition of work which only identifies gainful employment to work.
Unfortunately, this has left the work done by women across the country to be invisible and never has been quantified. In addition, caste, patriarchy, gender and neo-liberal policies have contributed towards making the work done by women being invisibilised.
Women In The Informal Economy
The women in the informal sector are resilient and Prof Tambe feels that scholars are being limited by their respective theoretical, conceptual concerns to understand the issue faced by women in the informal sector.
The cutting-edge research in the field preached that there is no movement of workers to be non-existent. Prof Tambe stated that the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have caused the classification of labourers to be “porous and almost interchangeable”.
Due to COVID-19, informality is expanding across sectors with the two categories of workers, sub-proletariat and lumpenproletariat, on the ground seen to be interchangeable.
The statistics on female employment in the country drawn from the census do not give the women a complete picture in employment, commanding us to be vigilant about how female workers are calculated.
Most women are employed in the informal sector, attracting most female employment and being involved in manual jobs.
In their publications and works, female economists such as Nirmala Banerjee and Ila Bhat had shown a negative connotation attached to the informal sector.
Prof Tambe mentions that the lack of industrialisation was the primary cause for people to move into occupations in the primary sector. The informal sector in the urban areas was “shoved under the carpet” as the state saw it as their failure to industrialise.
The 1991 reforms were the turning point as there was a labour market segmentation based on gender and the beginning of a positive narrative about the informal sector. It became an approved and preferred path for employment.
In 1989, for the first time, Dr Ila Bhat’s report focused on the role of women in the informal sector. The report also indulged in understanding the employment patterns and trends among women in the informal sector.
Strategies For Survival
As one of the strategies for survival, Prof Tambe refers to the movement in Maharashtra where common grazing land was captured and tilled. This movement was led by the renowned social worker Dadasaheb Gaikwad.
Women were at the forefront of this movement and had gone through brutal treatment from the state. However, this has paved the way for their survival. The PDS (Public Distribution System) was one of the survival strategies; however, that was affected due to privatisation, creating consequences for the informal sector.
Empowering Women Working In The Informal Economy
While talking about tradition and modernity in the Indian context that poses constraints on women in the informal sector, Prof Tambe explains that when the macro-level controlling factors fail, it forces the informal sector participants to rely on caste communities, village communities and religious institutions.
This is a case of modernity causing constraints.
Both tradition and modernity pose these constraints on the resilience of women involved in the informal sector.
These two factors pose a constraint on resilience, and the loss of livelihood, threat to local ecological systems, privatisation of essential services, and militarisation (emphasising the militarisation of forests in India by fencing forests boundaries) limited the resilience of the women workers.
Prof Tambe further elaborated on the different sources of resilience for women workers. The following were mentioned as sources of resilience:
- Civil Society.
- Collective Memories (Example: Narmada Bachao Andolan).
- Collective Goals.
- New Communities.
In conclusion to the talk, Prof Tambe revisited the questions and themes covered and spoke extensively only about how to promote and improve the resilience of women in the informal sector.
Prof Patel gave her remarks on the talk by Prof Tambe and wanted to bring attention to the Dr Arjun Sengupta Committee, which focused on addressing social security and social protection issues for workers in the informal sector.
Prof Patel notes the lack of discourse around the non-implementation of the suggestions by the committee in 2008. She also adds that the challenge faced by labourers in India is tough as twelve states in the country have abandoned labour protection legislatures formed from years of collective bargaining.
Dr Nandini Mondal talked about each of the themes: informality, survival, and resilience, and gave her observations on the thoughts shared by Prof Tambe. Dr Nandini also shares her own experience in Shanti Niketan, where she was introduced to the idea of community resource management and has witnessed women being the best users of community resources.
After providing her extensive remarks, Dr Nandini raised a question regarding the dignity in labour for women in the informal sector.
Prof Patel further focuses on the “tug of war” between mainstream and gender economics as mainstream economics only treats marketed activities as work. She also mentions the drawback of the statistics provided by the census, which follows the principles of mainstream economics.
Pertinent Questions
Soma K Parthasarathy raised a question regarding how women could acquire common property resources to acquire land for agriculture.
Prof Tambe explained how women were able to achieve this through the multiple campaigns, and also, the pressure from the existing progressive movements finally led to “Patta” being redistributed.
The redistribution of these lands was achieved by raising campaigns against the state and fighting cases in the court of law. Prof Tambe also points out the brutal treatment of Dalit women who fought for these rights.
Dr Mondal answering on how to quantify the work done by women at home said that it usually goes unnoticed.
On how to remove the patriarchal notion that women alone are responsible for the household, she said that we need to bring out the qualitative results more and create a voice to be heard at the policy level where we can push these agendas and say that we need the recognition.
Prof Vibhuti further adds that even the Court of Law has recognised housework in cases where compensation is determined, especially in divorce cases. The work put in by women at home is quantified using time-use analysis.
Prof Tambe also draws attention to the difference in ideology among women who look after their households differently depending on their status quo or caste.
On a question about how the state machinery can be accountable and responsible for the resilience of women informal sector, she replied, “The state is not ready to take responsibility and be accountable.” She further explains the need for the labour codes to acknowledge the role of women in GDP contribution.
Towards the end of the question and answer session Prof Tambe, Prof Patel and Soma Parthasarathy talked about the dire need to change how the census considers the work done by women at home.
Prof Vibhuti adds that in the census of 1991 that the census questions asked what all the women did in the household.
Concluding Remarks
Prof Patel concluded the discussion by thanking Prof Tambe and Dr Mondal for their insights and observations during the discussion.
She again reiterated the need for the state to take the right actions, implement the right policies and include women more in current policies that can improve their state in the informal sector.
She mentions the need to first recognise women’s work at home or outside so that they can be helped to come out of the negative aftermath of the pandemic.
The fact that the state has not taken the initiative to recognise workers in their system is a failure, where Anganwadi and Asha workers who receive remunerations from the state are still identified as volunteers.
Prof Tambe further clarified her points on resilience in her final remarks, as she says, “resilience is by compulsion”, as participants in the system such as the state and the patriarchal society that exists pose constraints that cause women to stand with resilience to move forward.
Acknowledgement: Arjun Sujit Varma is a Research Intern at IMPRI