Women participation in labour force drop in last 6 yrs

Chief Statistician TCA Anant has attributed the marginal fall in employment rate in the country to declining participation of women and children in the labour force.

Commenting on the key indicators of the recently released 66th round data on 'Employment and Unemployment' by the National Sample Survey Organisation, Anant said calculating the rate of employment and unemployment figures in India is a problematic job as various factors are included into it.

The preliminary data had showed a drop in labour market indicators to 40% in 2009-10 from 43% in 2004-05.

The key indicator from the survey, details of which are to be released later, had also shown that workers population ratio in the country has declined to 39.2% in 2009-10 from 42% in 2004-05.

Anant said that factoring in measures like subsidiary status of employment, employment in the age group of 0-19 years and employment among the women, the rate of employment has witnessed a fall.

"If you take these three out, you actually see the reverse... The employment between 2004-05 and 2009-10 has actually gone up. It was good in the previous five years. So interpreting numbers requires a considerable degree of care," Anant told reporters here.

"Actually what has happened is that these three categories see falls for different reasons. [The fall in employment numbers] in 0-19 age group is because of increased participation in schools," he added.

He said that there is reduction in subsidiary status of employment.

"Subsidiary status means the person is actually not working but for 30 days in a year, he manages to find some work. Now what is happening is that if the person shifts out of subsidiary status and gets regular jobs, this will show a decline," the chief statistician said.

Regarding employment among women, he said the fall is a long-term trend.

"This is the long term trend which is being seen that there is reduction in [number of women] in labour force and working," Anant said.

As per the key indicators, labour force participation rate among women have declined to 23.3% in 2009-10 from 29.4% in 2004-05.