Page 19 - MWG-011

16 Women in the Economy (MWG-011)
change this attitude. Women’s organization should also make exceptional efforts to uproot the
internalization of patriarchal attitude by women themselves.
• Awareness about adverse effects of segmentation of Labor Market: Men should be
made aware of the adverse effect labor market segmentation has not only on women but also
on employers. Women also must be made aware of the ill effects of labor market segmentation
who accept it as their destiny.
• Role of civil society: All organizations dealing with labor should be made receptive to the
fact and there should be special measures taken to orient the employers in both the private
and the public sector to encourage gainful employment for both men and women.
• Gender Inclusive Policies: Policies that are gender sensitive and promote gender equality
should be promoted. Special incentives should be instituted to encourage members of both
the sexes for achieving excellence in educational activities to performance at workplace.
• Advocacy by Government: There should be continuous effort, by governmental as well as
the non-government organizations dealing with women, to remove misconceptions which
regard ‘home’ as the only sphere of work for women. Imaginary adverse effects women’s work
will have on their children and other familial responsibilities should be discouraged. Research
should be encouraged in this field to remove such misconceptions.
• Encouragement Formal Education: Special efforts should be made to see that girl
children enroll for primary education in equal number and special attention should be paid to
reduce the drop-out ratio. They should be encouraged to go in for higher studies by giving
special scholarships. If women venture into untrodden areas of study previously not opted by
women, they should be given special incentives.
• Childcare Facilities: Special facilities like maternity leave, crèche to take care of the
children of working women etc., must be made available so that women can enter the
organized sector of the labor market. Since individual employers will be unwilling to bear the
cost, the State should shoulder the responsibility. This will minimize the resistance of
employers to women employees.
• Equal Remuneration: Women should get equal remuneration as men in the same
occupation. This has not been possible in spite of the fact that India has ratified the Equal
Remuneration Convention. So, there is a need to modify the law and also effectively
implement the same if women are to be integrated within the labor market.

Q6. Describe the nature of wage differential and analysis its causes.
Ans. Nature of Wage Differentials: There are differences in the wages paid to the men and
women workers. This is found around the world and is not something peculiar to India. This is
generally done by reserving certain categories of work for women and other categories of work for
men and by paying higher rate of wage for the categories of work reserved for men. Equal
Remuneration Convention No. 1000 was passed by I.L.O. in 1951 and was ratified by India. Equal
Remuneration Act passed in India in 1976, makes it obligatory on the employers to pay equal
remuneration, but the female workers are till now paid less than the male workers.
The NSSO (1996) Report shows that not only in agriculture but in all other areas of employment like
industry, finance and services, women are paid lower wages. Thus, while women are paid 90.8% of
male wages in agriculture, the percentage is 67.8% in mining, 84.5% in finance sector and 72.0% in
service sector. The wage differential is seen not only throughout different sectors of employment, but
also in some profession. At the same educational level, women get 85.5% of men’s salary in nursing,
71.4% in teaching and 87.4% in clerical jobs. If this is the plight of educated women, one can well
imagine the predicament of illiterate and semi-literate women. With women’s increased participation
in paid work there is mixed evidence that, the gender-wage gap has shown a tendency to diminish. In
some industrialized countries, such as, the United States of America, the gap appears to have
narrowed. In others, such as, Japan, it has widened. Similarly, in developing countries, such as EI
Salvador and Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Myanmar, Singapore, Taiwan, and Province of China, the wage
gap has widened.
Even though the evidence is sparse, trade expansion and liberalization with Foreign Direct Investment
(FDI) flows are likely to affect gender wage gaps in two ways: (a) through differential impact on the
demand for female and male labors; and (b) through increase in bargaining power relative to
organized workers in industries that are directly affected by the export of capital. FDI flows might be
expected to drive up the wages of women workers because they tend to stimulate demand for female
labor. By contrast, the increased ability of businesses to relocate all or some segments of their
production across national borders puts a downward pressure on the wages of workers in the affected
industries. The little existing research suggests that the latter effect has been stronger.