Women's Low Employment Rates in India

Cultural and Structural Explanations

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4122732
AutoresEsha Chatterjee (0000-0002-6855-2966, autor de correspondencia), Reeve Vanneman, Reeve D Vanneman
Año2022
Volumen48
Número2
Páginas445-474
Fecha de publicación2022-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPopulation and Development Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0098-7921 • E-ISSN: 1728-4457
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/padr.12474
OpenAlexW4221021577
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas41

Indian women's labor force participation rates have long demonstrated a U-shaped relationship with their education, rather than a more conventional positive linear relationship. The low rates of employment for moderately educated women are usually explained either as a result of the cultural stigma of women's employment in a patriarchal society or because of the lack of demand from white-collar and light manufacturing jobs for women with middle levels of education. Using especially well-suited data from two waves of the India Human Development Survey, we test these explanations by examining the education-employment relationship in districts with low cultural stigma (low observance of purdah) and high proportions of (salaried) employment considered "suitable" for women. We find little support for either the cultural or structural explanations: the education-employment relationship remains U-shaped in districts with low stigma or with more "suitable" salaried employment. Instead, we suggest a better explanation lies in the high levels of gender segregation where most white-collar jobs are reserved for men. We simulate what the education-employment relationship would look like if these white-collar occupations were female-dominated as they are in most places in the world and find a more conventional linear relationship

Collar · Demographic economics · Economics · Political science · Sociology · Stigma (botany) · White (mutation) · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Psychology · Work-Family Balance Challenges