IWWAGE-Institute for What Works to Advance Gender Equality
Economist
Mridusmita is an Economist at IWWAGE, an initiative of LEAD. She has 20 years of research experience, primarily in the areas of India’s labour market, education sector, child protection, and household sector income & consumption patterns in India. Her research work has been largely based on quantitative analysis of official large-scale surveys (NSSO, PFFS, NFHS, ASI), census (Census of India, U-DISE Plus), macro-economic datasets, and India’s public finances (Union budget, State budgets, and District treasuries). She has extensive experience in conducting primary surveys, including sampling design, questionnaire designing, and training. She has focussed on understanding the status of provisioning of public welfare services in the social sector, equity in outcomes, and implementation of various policy interventions. She has studied the implementation processes of centrally sponsored schemes related to education and child-protection sectors, including analysis of public finances and governance structures. She has also conducted fund-flow tracking surveys to understand last mile reach of public finances and utilisation of budgets. In the area of labour market, she has worked on financial returns to education, informality, social security of unorganised workers in India, linkages between education and labour market, and gender-gaps in labour market outcomes. Currently she is engaged in research to understand challenges related to women’s labour market participation in India and ways of enhancing women’s work participation.
Executive Director, IWWAGE
Radha is a qualified senior level professional having more than three decades of expertise in the development and humanitarian sector—in operations, management and programmes. She has worked in South Asia, particularly in India and Nepal, with multiple stakeholders including governments, UN agencies, INGOs and civil society organizations. Prior to joining IWWAGE, she has held diverse senior level positions including representative positions in the United Nations.
Her thematic excellence lies on gender equality and inclusion, women empowerment, gender based violence, emergencies, social protection, livelihood and skill building, environment and climate, and migration.
Participation at the workshop titled “Formalisation, Informalisation and the Labour Process”, at the University of Göttingen, Germany
Dr Ruchika Chaudhary (Senior Research Fellow), and Dr Sona Mitra (Principal Economist) at Institute for What Works to Advance Gender Equality (IWWAGE) at LEAD, attended a stimulating workshop, “Formalisation, Informalisation and the Labour Process“, organised by the Centre for Modern Indian Studies at the University of Göttingen, Germany, during 20-22 November, 2019.
They presented a paper entitled, “Labour practises in the emerging gig economy in India: A case study of UrbanClap”. India has seen the emergence of the gig/platform economy, fuelled by technological advancements, and mobile application based (app-based) business models are thriving in the country. As a result, new non-standard forms of work are evolving, and thereby blurring the classical production boundaries, and changing the standard employer-employee relationship. Their paper unpacks these changes and put forth some of the explanations for the changing labour practices, commodification of labour and increased informalisation in the rapidly emerging gig economy of India, by focusing on female beauty and salon service providers of UrbanClap (known service platform), in Delhi and Mumbai. The study was supported by Asia Foundation.
The Institute for What Works to Advance Gender Equality (IWWAGE), through its Centre of Excellence on Women’s Empowerment Collectives, organized a breakfast roundtable on “SHG Federations for Women’s Economic Empowerment: Setting a New Agenda” on December 11, 2018 in New Delhi.
The discussions revolved around the following thematic areas :
Exploring the Role of Women’s Collectives and Community Participation
9-10 January 2020, New Delhi, India
The World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, and DFID in partnership with the Ministry of Rural Development organised a conference on the evidence and learning from the national rural livelihoods programs, state projects and the implications for evidence-informed policymaking. The conference brought together policymakers, researchers and development practitioners to understand how evidence can feed into programmes and policies.
As a part of the two-day conference held in New Delhi, Institute for What Works to Advance Gender Equality (IWWAGE), organised a session: Can rural livelihoods interventions reshape deep rooted social and gender hierarchies?
The session revolved around efforts, experiences, and evidence on building gender-intentional programming with NRLM. The session featured lessons from a program on engendering livelihoods led by ANANDI in a pilot program in Madhya Pradesh; the experience and learnings from Kudumbashree’s Gender Programming including the Gender Self Learning Program and Snehitha; the design of a multistate program of work to engender NRLM and strengthen institutional mechanisms for gender through Gender Resource Centres; and finally, NRLM’s efforts to integrate gender through the program.
The presenters included Nita Kejrewal (JS, MoRD); Usha Rani (Lead, IB/CB, Gender, and FNHW, NMMU); Yamini Atmavilas (BMGF); representative from Kudumbashree, Govt of Kerala; Soumya Kapoor and Divya Hariharan (IWWAGE-LEAD, KREA University).
Co-Lead (SWAYAM)
Ms.Sarkar has an undergraduate degree in Chemistry (H) from University of Calcutta followed by a Post Graduation degree in Rural Development and Management from University of Kalyani, West Bengal. She has also won the Mathematics Olympiad.
She has an experience of twelve years in programme management, research, training and advocacy with national and international organizations like Ministry of Rural Development (Govt.of India), UN Women, UNDP, J-PAL and CInI (TATA Trust). Her core areas include Livelihoods and Gender.
In the recent past, she has been instrumental in drafting policy documents under the guidance of the Additional Secretary and Joint Secretary of MoRD, commissioned MGNREGS action research studies to provide gender responsive recommendations based on field findings and actively engaged with the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojna-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) team to draft the gender protocol at NIRD&PR. AS UN Volunteer she has taken the lead in preparing teaching material for three months certificate course on Livelihood Planning and Supply Chain Management in Chhattisgarh SIRD adopting a case based training model. She also undertook qualitative research studies to review the Read India programme outcomes in Bihar.
She has been invited by various institutions like IIPA, VVGNLI, NIRD&PR, Bhartiya Vidyapeeth College of Nursing (Pune), Bengal National Chamber of Commerce & Industry to deliver session on Gender.
She will be based at IWWAGE, Delhi office.
Senior Research Associate
Surabhi Awasthi is a Senior Research Associate at IWWAGE, and is currently working with the Strengthening Women’s Institutions for Agency and Empowerment (SWAYAM) for the National Rural Livelihood Mission. She has previously worked with the National Human Rights Commission as a consultant providing research support in the policy and research division on the issues related to women and children. Before joining IWWAGE, she led the research team for the Geography of Philosophy Project based at IIT, Delhi, and headquartered at the University of Pittsburgh (USA). She is a trained qualitative researcher with experience in narrative inquiry and ethnography; her research interests include gender, labor, and changing family institutions. Surabhi holds an M.Phil. in Social Work from the University of Delhi, where she was awarded a Junior Research Fellowship from the University Grants Commission, India. Through her work, she aims to bridge the gap between academia and practical policy goals, particularly related to furthering women’s equality in India through education and welfare policy. In her free time Surabhi enjoys cooking and researching about food history and food science, and spend time with her cats.
Head-HR and Administration
Flawless in administrative and HR skills, Preeti is passionate towards the operations work she is doing. She has robust and more than 17 years of experience in Admin and HR management especially in the Development Sector. Prior to moving to IWWAGE, Preeti worked as an Administration Manager with Catalyst, another project of LEAD (IFMR Society) at Krea University .
She has worked with FHI 360 for a decade in various capacities including Admin Officer and supporting Country Director. She has great counseling skills.
Preeti has an Economics degree from Delhi University, Diploma in Office Management from YMCA, and Operational Management Diploma from MIT and PGPM from Great Lakes Institute.
Communication Manager
Pallavi works as Manager- Communications & Learning at IWWAGE. She was last working as Communication and Advocacy Manager for Reckitt’s CSR programmes, Dettol’s Banega Swasth India (DBSI) initiative.
As far as her education goes, she has a master’s degree in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University. She also comes with experience in policy with a demonstrated history of working in the non-profit organization management industry. To name a few, she has worked with International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), Aga Khan Foundation, Teach for India, FXB India. She is skilled in strategic communications, advocacy, project management, research, Sociology, data analysis (qualitative) and gender studies. She likes to spend time with her dog, bake cakes and try various cuisines in her free time.
Senior Research Associate
Arpita Paul is a statistician cum demographer with over 10 years of quantitative research experience in public health, market research, survey implementation around RMNCH issues in different contextual settings. Her research activities mainly focused on social determinants of health and wellbeing, understanding various aspects of maternal & child health, factors determining the health, wellbeing and living arrangement of the elderly.
Before joining IWWAGE, she was working with Public Health Foundation of India, Gurugram where she was the lead analyst. She has substantial experiences in survey design, large scale data handling, and advanced statistical analysis along with expertise in various statistical software. She has a PhD in Demography from International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai and a post graduate degree in Statistics from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.
In her spare time, she enjoys reading and dancing.
Research Associate
Suchika is working as a Research Associate at IWWAGE. She has completed her Bachelors in Arts from Sri Venkateswara college, Delhi University and MSc in Economics from Symbiosis School of Economics, Pune. She is a research enthusiast and loves gardening, making crafts, doing yoga and is a big linguaphile in her free time. Her research interests include poverty, inequality, trade, gender, and other developmental areas.
Program Manager
Sruthi is a Program Manager (Research) at IWWAGE. In the past, she has donned various roles in the policy and government consulting realms working on a range of developmental issues with think tanks, government agencies, civil society organizations and citizens’ groups. Before joining IWWAGE, she worked with UN Women as the Coordinator of the Feminist Policy Collective.
Sruthi’s experience comprises of diverse engagements around feminist economics, women’s entrepreneurship, gender-sensitive urban planning as well as documenting the gendered impact of development projects. She holds a Bachelors degree in Engineering from Mumbai University, a Masters degree in Public Policy & Governance from Azim Premji University, Bangalore and a PG Diploma in Communications from Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. She is generally always on a quest to find feminist perspectives in everyday life.
Business Manager
Neeraj Upadhyay is working as a Business Manager at IWWAGE. He is a result oriented professional with 10 years of experience in Project Management, Partner Management, Grant Management, Donor Management, and Administration.
Prior to joining IWWAGE, he has worked with some renowned international and national development sector institutions such as Learning Links Foundation (LLF), CARE India, Action contre la Faim (ACF, Paris), and World Health Organization (WHO), where he managed many international funding agencies including BMGF, USAID, UNICEF, and FHI 360, as well as corporate donors such as Dell, Ashok Leyland, Cargill, and GSK. He has completed his Master’s degree in Project Management.
Research Fellow
Bidisha has worked extensively in various dimensions of socio-economic inequalities. Her core research interests lie in analyzing gender gap and discrimination faced by marginalized social categories in Indian labour market. Besides, she has thoroughly studied the trends in healthcare expenditure among Indian households and various kinds of inequalities existing there.
Bidisha has completed her masters from University of Calcutta and Ph.D. from Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her doctoral study looks into various kinds of labour market segmentation in Indian manufacturing sector.
Before joining IWWAGE, Bidisha has worked with National Institute of Public Finance and Policy for more than four years. Her research works got published in many peer-reviewed journals of national and international repute.
Executive Director, LEAD at Krea University
Sharon Buteau combines expansive experience of over 18 years in research and international development, with over 7 years in the field of digital financial services and financial inclusion. Sharon is deeply passionate about finding effective solutions to promote enterprise growth and development, and realising the untapped potential of micro and small businesses.
At LEAD, Sharon focuses on bringing the right combination of talent, expertise and stakeholders together to ensure that investments and efforts are perfectly aligned with the desired goals. Sharon holds significant expertise on how to leverage co-creation, collaborative processes, as well using the power of data from the ground up can improve socio-economic outcomes for individuals, households and enterprises. She has in-depth knowledge in “right-fit research methods” and significant experience in the domain of financial capabilities and well-being, and small business and entrepreneurship development.
Sharon started her journey at LEAD in 2008, when she arrived in India with a strong desire to improve society by producing impactful knowledge that can bring positive change. Prior to joining LEAD, Sharon was an economist with Analysis Group in Montreal Canada.
Sharon holds an MSc in Economics from the Universite du Quebec a Montreal, as well as an MA in Social Research Methods from the London School of Economics.
Associate Director, LEAD at Krea University
Preethi Rao oversees the leveraging evidence function (collaborations, training, learning and communications, and innovations) and contributes to strategic decision-making at LEAD. Preethi has served the organization in various capacities such as Head – Innovation, Senior Operations Manager and Researcher (MSME).
As an Innovation Champion, she drives new initiatives and is responsible for conceptualizing new areas of interest for the organization. Prior to heading the Innovation vertical, Preethi has overseen the entire field data collection and digitization operations (spanning more than 10 states) of LEAD in her capacity as Senior Manager (Operations & Development). Preethi was the Director of the Jaipur Digital Payments Lab at Catalyst, where she oversaw the entire on-ground execution, managed partner/stakeholder relations, managed donor liaison and expectations, anchored M&E and was involved in the production of programmatic learning outputs. For IWWAGE, an initiative of LEAD conducting research on women’s economic empowerment, she serves as the Innovation Lead, assisting in setting up the hub, providing particular assistance in terms of confirming policies and procedures, and setting up outreach protocols in coordination with the team.
Apart from donning multiple hats at LEAD, over the years Preethi has undertaken interdisciplinary studies on access to finance for small and medium scale enterprises and the influence of macroeconomic policies on the low-income populations. She has also been involved in developing, designing and leading research studies and short term projects in open data, financial inclusion and MSMEs.
Preethi holds a Master’s Degree in Management from IFMR Graduate School of Business where her focus areas were Finance and Marketing.
In her free time, Preethi likes to write poetry, read fiction and watch documentaries on Psychology or experimentation on human behavior.
Research Associate
Trisha is a Research Associate at IWWAGE. She has a Bachelors in Economics from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata and a Masters and MPhil in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her MPhil thesis is titled Changing Contours of Regional Value Chains in East Asia. Her research interests include labour, gender, trade, value chains, migration, care economy and fragile and conflict affected areas. She has also worked on Indian agriculture, currency flows and gender budgeting for different projects.
Research Associate
Tanay has completed his MSc in Development Economics from University of Sussex and MA in Economics from North Bengal University. Before joining IWWAGE, he was working at SUVITA, a non-profit start-up working on Child Immunization, and helped to scale up the SMS Reminder and Immunization Ambassador programmes. He also worked with DevInsights Pvt. Ltd. as a research executive and coordinated different projects. Tanay is interested in impact evaluation methodologies and cutting edge quantitative and qualitative research. His postgraduate dissertation focused on the economic impact of Self Help Groups. His areas of interest include financial inclusion, women economic empowerment, econometrics and impact evaluation.
Documentation Specialist
Aikantika is a Documentation Specialist at IWWAGE. She has an undergraduate degree in Sociology from Miranda House, Delhi University and a postgraduate degree in Rural Development and Governance from TISS, Hyderabad.
Aikantika has a work experience of over 6 years, mostly with women’s groups. She started her career with SERP, Andhra Pradesh in the MLE team on a World Bank project where she worked very closely with SHGs. She has also worked with CDFI at IFMR on conceptualising and implementing technology innovations for social benefit delivery with SHGs and Anganwadis as well as on the software development, testing and maintenance for the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. Before moving to IWWAGE, she was working with the Population Council as a public health researcher where she was a part of a systematic review on women’s groups and health. She also co-led an implementation research study with NIRD&PR, Hyderabad to understand NRLM’s health and nutrition intervention with SHGs.
Research Manager
Parushya is a Research Manager at IWWAGE. He supports research design and handles quantitative data and analytics on multiple projects focused on studying the informal economy, urban poverty, and social protection schemes. Before joining IWWAGE he was part of research projects assessing the role of property rights and public services on the economic and social mobility of urban poor populations.
A civil engineering graduate from the National Institute of Technology Karnataka and Young India Fellowship, Ashoka University, he has more than 5 years of experience in the development sector. He has worked as an International Innovation Corps Fellow with the University of Chicago followed by multiple research and consultancy roles with various international development organizations and government departments in India.
Project Manager
Neelanjana is a researcher with an academic background in Economics and quantitative analysis. She has over five years of experience in conducting evidence-based research to inform challenging questions of public policy. Her areas of interest are education and financial inclusion with the cross-cutting theme of gender. She hopes to use her experience and knowledge to empower those who wish to create better lives for themselves, and thus, work towards inclusive and sustainable development. Previously, she has served at NITI Aayog’s Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office, and has published works on topics of human development while at Brookings Institution India Center. She is currently a Senior Research Associate at IWWAGE, a LEAD at Krea University initiative.
Neelanjana is a graduate of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs where she obtained a Master of International Affairs and holds an undergraduate degree in Economics with Honors and International & Global Studies from Brandeis University.
Head, IWWAGE
As the Head of IWWAGE, New Delhi, India, Ms. Soumya Kapoor Mehta leads IWWAGE’s efforts to generate, leverage, and synthesize evidence on women’s economic empowerment.
Soumya has an experience of nearly 18 years in the development sector, spanning research around gender, women’s empowerment, poverty reduction strategies, social inclusion challenges and policy levers to alleviate them around the world.
Prior to joining IWWAGE, she was working as an independent policy advisor for the World Bank, UNICEF, the Government of India, the Centre for Policy Research and the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), helping these institutions mainstream inclusion and gender issues in their research and projects ranging from investments in women’s collectives (NRLM), to sectors such as water, agriculture, infrastructure, urban development and environment and climate change. She has co-authored several World Bank and UNICEF research outputs, including some of their flagship reports and has two widely acclaimed books to her credit. Between 2003 and 2009, she worked as full time staff for the World Bank anchoring a large cross-country study on poverty and strategies to reduce it.
Soumya has a Tripos Degree from the University of Cambridge in Economics and a B.A. (Hons.) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. She has also been a Visiting Fellow to the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Senior Research Associate
Rhitabrita is a Senior Research Associate at IWWAGE. She is a development economist and has worked extensively in the areas of social infrastructure, gendered economics, food security and ecological economics. Her areas of interest lie in creating sustainable solutions to socio-economic issues plaguing developing nations and LDCs.
She has a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Presidency University, Kolkata. Her graduation dissertation looked into the post-globalisation labour market and quality of labour in India. She has a master’s degree in Applied Economics from Jadavpur University, Kolkata with specialisations in Development Economics, Econometrics and Environmental Economics.
She has had more than 3 years of experience working as a full time researcher. Prior to joining IWWAGE she has worked as a Research Associate at the Center for research on the Economics of Climate, Food, Energy and Environment (CECFEE) at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Delhi. She also worked in areas of child labour, women’s education and sanitation amongst migrant labour, food security, nurturing entrepreneurial abilities in both impoverished agricultural communities and urban labour, river plastic pollution and the economics of the Sundarbans ecology as a researcher and M&E specialist with SOCEO gGmbH. She is a regular writer for the Public Economist- Policy Monitor.
Panel Discussion on Women’s Economic Empowerment: Evidence, Policy and Practice in India
Organised by the World Bank South Asia, 12 March, 2020
As a part of the “South Asia Women in the Workforce Week”, a panel discussion was organised by the World Bank South Asia Regional Gender team in collaboration with the India Gender Platform to celebrate International Women’s Day.
The panel focused on the evidence base for policies, programs and interventions that aim to promote women’s economic empowerment in India. The panel highlighted the evidences and lessons from successful interventions, i.e. “what we know” and the existing research gaps in women’s economic empowerment in India and potential opportunities for innovation, i.e. “what’s missing”. The panel responded to some crucial questions on the evidence on women’s economic empowerment in India, and the need for more evidence. The discussion also revolved around innovative ideas for future research, policy, and practice and the lessons to be learned from other countries and regions.
Speakers also shared their motivation that gives hope and drive and to continue their respective invaluable work. They also shared examples of efforts in South Asia and India that inspires a shift in the current thinking and practice on women’s economic empowerment.
The panellist included, Rohini Pande (Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics, Director of the Economic Growth Center, Yale University), Jayati Ghosh (Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University), Jorge Coarasa (Program Leader, World Bank), Yamini Atmavilas (India Lead, Gender Equality, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), and Soumya Kapoor (Head, IWWAGE)
IWWAGE along with the Feminist Policy Collective (FPC), hosted a panel discussion on Violence and the Political Economy of Work at Indian Association of Women’s Studies Conference 2020 (IAWS), held at the National Law University (NLUD), Delhi from 28-30 January, 2020.
The panel on Violence and the Political Economy of Work focused on identifying and unravelling of the political economy of production-patriarchy interdependency, and the interlinkages between the continuum of work and the continuum of violence. The panelists talked on the multiple strands of work and violence woven together based on ground realities and linkages to economic policies. The interconnectedness of the domain was explored to develop a nuanced critique of the political economy of work and to give directions for future strategy. The panel addressed topics around:
Speakers:
Moderator: Subhalakshmi Nandi, Feminist Policy Collective (FPC)
Discussant: Chirashree Das Gupta, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Organised by National Commission for Women in collaboration with V.V.Giri National Labour Institute
March 6, 2020
The National Commission for Women in collaboration with the V. V. Giri National Labour Institute has proposed to conduct five regional consultations on matters relating to working women, especially those in the unorganised sector to understand the factors affecting female labour force participation. The regional consultations will be held in Cuttack, Guwahati, Bengaluru, Gandhinagar and Delhi in collaboration with respective National Law Universities (NLUs). The Cuttak consultation was held on March 6, 2020.
The regional consultations will be deliberating on issues related to women’s participation in the labour market and the constraints which women face to continue in paid employment. There would be an attempt to understand the relationship between female labour force participation (FLFP) with informality, unpaid care work, gender-based violence including workplace harassment, marriage, socio-cultural norms, social protection, labour regulations etc. The consultations will also bring to light a range of factors with a focus on region specific factors affecting women’s paid work and highlight on the necessary policy interventions/action plans that need to undertake at a regional level for addressing the issues related to declining female labour force participation. This would be a platform for sharing of good practices and experiences addressing FLFP. The regional consultation will be bringing together experts and practitioners working on gender and labour issues including scholars from the academia, government (Ministries concerned), State Commissions on Women, international organizations, and other organisations.
Research Associate
Nidhi is a Research Associate at IWWAGE. She holds an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Miranda House, University of Delhi and a Masters in Economics from Ambedkar University Delhi. She has been a visiting student at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, where she worked in the domain of labour economics, around the status of women’s participation in the labour force in major states of India. She is currently engaged in creating state factsheets for India, describing major trends in women’s workforce participation, using the recent PLFS data. Her areas of interest include applied microeconomics, feminist economics and Marxist political economy.
Research Associate
Ayushi is a Research Associate at IWWAGE. She completed her Post-graduation in Economics from Ashoka University and holds a Bachelors in Economics degree from Kamala Nehru College, University of Delhi. Previously, Ayushi has been associated with the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG) and Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) and has worked closely on matters of revenue mobilization. She is interested in issues of gender and caste discrimination especially with respect to resource allocation.
IWWAGE partnered with the National Gender Centre at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) to support a series of workshops on multi-agency coordination to address violence against women and children. The first among a series of three workshops was organised on 19-21 December,2019 at the academy in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand. The workshop brought together officials serving in the field of administration, law enforcement, judiciary and medical services, and those who have been engaged in investigating and prosecuting cases of violence against women and children. The three-day workshop included sessions on intersectionality of gender, legal scenario and current context in India, understanding violence from a victim’s perspectives, and institutional mechanisms that exist to prosecute cases of violence, including group work on several case studies that dealt with such cases.
Capacity Building Program in Tackling Violence against Women and Children in India
7-8 March, 2019
Organised by: ICRW and VVGNLI
IWWAGE participated as a presenter at the two-day workshop to commemorate International Women’s Day. The workshop saw participation from experts and practitioners working on gender and labor issues, including scholars from various academia, concerned ministries from the government, international organisations, and civil society.
A One-day Stakeholder Consultation for Informing the Union Budget (2020-21) Organised by Feminist Policy Collective in partnership with UN Women Multi Country Office (MCO) for India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka
18 November 2019
Over the years, line Ministries in India with the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) as an anchor, have undertaken several gender mainstreaming and Gender-Responsive Budgeting (GRB) efforts. This also included supporting a Working Group of Feminist Economists (WGFE) within the erstwhile Planning Commission. UNIFEM and UN Women supported much of this work in the past and contributed to inclusion of intersectional and marginalized perspectives into planning and budgeting processes at national and state level.
As Government of India launches its efforts for developing the Union Budget (2020-21), the Feminist Policy Collective (FPC) proposes to bring together government, policymakers, researchers and practitioners from across the country, working on GRB and feminist financing across sectors, to discuss and deliberate on persistent challenges at national and state level, as well as to identity promising practices that can be replicated and upscaled in the upcoming budget. FPC works on Transformative Policy and Financing for Gender Equality. It is run by an independent network of academic researchers, policy experts, and campaigners who are committed to strengthening gender transformative policies, plans, and budgets in India.
Based on a situational analysis undertaken by the FPC to inform this consultation[1], the following thematic areas, strategies and mechanisms for GRB and financing have been prioritized: (a) women’s economic empowerment, (b) data and statistics, (c) platforms for gender-responsive and intersectional planning and (d) institutional mechanisms and accountability for GRB and financing.
IWWAGE and the Institute of Social Studies Trust co-organized a day-long round table discussion on “Women’s Employment Within an Entrepreneurship Model”.
The discussion was held on January 21, 2019 in New Delhi.
7 December, 2019
Panel title: Rethinking the Discourse on Women’s Economic Empowerment
Organised by: Centre for Gender Studies at IHD, BMGF and IWWAGE
The continuing attention to gaps in women’s economic empowerment and declining LFP in India has opened up both persistent and newer barriers (and enablers) to women’s economic participation, agency, and decision-making vis-à-vis markets, states, households and communities. A wide range of investigations have been looking beyond questions of restrictive cultural norms to look at measurement of women’s work; labor market discrimination; non-sharing of domestic chores; forms of women’s unpaid work; lack of suitable jobs; low human capital investment including education and skilling; fertility; education and so on. Discussions around macroeconomic policies, trade regimes, low social protection especially for informal sector workers, and decreased expenditure on health care are often left out of the framing of women’s economic empowerment. Discussions on power that are core to the very idea of empowerment are also sometimes missing in more recent work rooted in behavioral economics. Women’s collective solidarity economies receive little mention in favor of large technocratic platform economies. We also see that globally the discourse around women’s economic empowerment has been expanding: the discourse around the world of work for women has been transforming thanks to the future of work discussions, the ILO’s widening the definition of ‘work’ to include women’s unpaid work, the ILO’s resolution on violence and work that goes beyond sexual harassment. More recently, looking at SHG programs through the lens of labor has also begun to bring newer theoretical and conceptual possibilities. This roundtable seeks to bring experts together to re-invigorate discussions on women’s economic empowerment in India and shape a research and policy agenda. These could include bringing together and synergies around macro, LFP, and empowerment and violence literatures, connecting across breaches in the WEE literature – such as market-based, labor-based, and norms-based approaches, and exploring where we need new and/or deeper theorizing for WEE in India.
Report_Rethinking the Discourse on Women’s Economic Empowerment
IWWAGE is hosting a seminar on (In)Visibility, Care and Cultural Barriers: The Size and Shape of Women’s Work in India, by Ashwini Deshpande, Professor of Economics, Ashoka University.
The talk will focus on the reasons underlying low labour force participation of women in India based on a recent study. The study discusses the interlinked complexities of women’s choice, constraints posed by domestic work and care responsibilities, and the predominant understanding of cultural norms as factors explaining the low labour force participation as measured by involvement in paid work.It addresses aspects of mis-measurement of women’s work due to the fuzziness of boundaries between domestic work and unpaid (and therefore invisible) economic work. The study also highlights the extent of women’s unmet demands for work.
Home Production, Technology and Women’s Time Allocation in India
Dr Farzana Afridi, Associate Professor, Economics and Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute
The talk focused on documenting trends in women’s time allocation between market, home production and leisure. It highlighted the possible role of technology in reducing the time allocated to domestic work by women and potentially improving their health.
The discussion was held on May 17, 2019 in New Delhi.
December 7-9, 2019
Panel title: Women in rural labourforce: Factors influencing non-agricultural engagement of women workers
Panel abstract: Labourforce statistics in India clearly show that women’s work in rural areas remain concentrated in petty activities in the secondary and service sectors that are usually low paid, low-value added and do not have much potential for intersectoral and vertical mobilities. The existing opportunities are either unremunerative and does not meet women’s expected working conditions and returns from labour or are those that require training, education and skills that are not imparted efficiently for engaging women or those that are determined by the women’s social identities. The thrust towards use of advanced technology has also ushered in a different regime of work for women alongside the traditional methods of organisation of work, for instance in the emerging ‘gig work’ or increasing use of digital platforms for women’s economic collectives or facilitating financial inclusion of women and so on. This panel proposes to deliberate and discuss on these several aspects of ‘what works’ to reverse such declines in women’s engagement; importance of education, skill and training; role of social identities; use of technology and macroeconomic factors influencing economic opportunities for women.
Panelists: Atul Sood (JNU), Anjana Thampi (IWWAGE), Dipa Sinha (AUD), Nitya (SEWA), Ruchika Chaudhary (IWWAGE)
Discussant: Amit Basole, Centre for sustainable Employment, APU and Uma Rani, ILO
Moderator: Sona Mitra, IWWAGE
December 7-9, 2019
Panel title: Importance of creches for women’s economic participation
Panel abstract: Barriers to maternal employment or unpaid care work for women is an important area of research to engage effectively in the productive economic activities and thus forms an important labour right for women. Evidence around women’s unpaid work constitute almost 65% of all work performed by women, 10-12% of which include taking care of children and family members. It is in this context that the models of quality centre-based childcare and its impact on maternal employment has shown effective results for Nordic countries and also in certain Latin American countries (in studies conducted by IWWAGE) which have replicable practices for developing economies. In India, the discourse around creches has remained stunted at the level of providing such facilities at worksites. This panel attempts to present evidence on the positive impact of centre-based childcare on women’s engagement in economic activities across the world as well as in the local context, potentials of centre-based childcare to reduce women’s time for care activities as well as improve earning abilities of women with such systematic and quality support in childcare. The objective of the panel is to strengthen evidence around this topic to be able to reinforce the rights-based discourse around women’s fundamental labour right of being economically active.
Panelists: Anoushaka Chandrasekhar, IFMR LEAD; Monika Banerjee (ISST), Sudeshna Sengupta (formerly Mobile creches)
Discussants: Susan Thomas (SEWA)
Moderator: Kanika Jha Kingra (IWWAGE)
IWWAGE participated in the ‘What Works Global Summit held in Mexico City, 14-18 October, 2019.
The panel on ‘Importance of evidence creation in women’s economic empowerment (WEE) in India’ proposed by IWWAGE was moderated by Yamini Atmavilas of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The panel focussed on WEE as a major policy concern in India. The panellists presented data and evidence to action initiatives operating at the national and sub-national levels of governance in India.
Madhuparna Joshi from C3 leading the IWW-Bihar work, highlighted the mechanisms such as creating state report cards and a dashboard to help fill in evidence gaps that informed policies focussed to enhance women’s safety and mobility in the state of Bihar. Sona Mitra from IWWAGE at LEAD, Krea University presented a synthesis of their work with the government focussing on creating evidence for actionable policies to – reduce the burden of women’s unpaid work, improve the quality of work for women and the challenges and mechanisms of working with the government in India. Soledad Prillaman from Stanford University, presented her findings on an evaluative evidence building of the forward linkages of the skilling program in the state of Odisha and provided insights on strengthening those in order to achieve success in the skilling initiatives for young girls. The participation in the session was encouraging with a vibrant discussion that followed the presentations. Ms. Atmavilas summed up the discussions through her final comments focussing on the need for more such evaluative evidence building that would inform future policy initiatives for WEE.
Organised by The NCAER-National Data Innovation Centre (NDIC) and Institute for Financial Management Research-India Initiative for What Works (IFMR-IIWW)
NDIC and IFMR-IIWW jointly organised an initiative, Kathopakathan (conversation) on Women’s Economic Empowerment in New Delhi, attended by representatives from the spheres of research, policymaking, and data collection. The discussions at the Kathopakathan event are part of a series of activities to be undertaken by NCAER-NDIC for building research capacity, and promoting innovation and excellence in data collection in the country. The interactive sessions at the event revolved around two themes surrounding women’s economic empowerment –
How can policy opportunities enhance women’s economic empowerment through participation in the workforce by countering the constraints faced by them in the labour market?
Should the nature of data collection change given the evolving nature of work and contextual factors that influence such activities, especially since the available data sets on women’s economic participation like the NSS have apparently not kept pace with far-reaching changes in labour markets?
Impact of World Bank’s Adolescent Girls Initiative (AGI) on the socio-economic status of young African Women
Shubha Chakravarty, Senior Economist in the World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Practice in South Asia
Young women are a key demographic with the potential to transform gender relations and contribute to economic growth and development. Many programs in low-income countries offer evidence to economically empower young women, however, the scale of these are often limited. In this context, the talk highlighted evidence from a set of World Bank-supported projects in seven low-income countries in Africa under the Adolescent Girls Initiative for scaling up of women’s empowerment programs and the consequent socio-economic impact. The talk put light on competing models and the “best practice” for young women’s economic empowerment, and scaling up of similar programs in India and West Africa.
The discussion was held on October 30, 2019 in New Delhi.
Resources
Senior Program Manager
Divya Hariharan is a Program Manager at IWWAGE, and is currently engaged in IWWAGE’s research and evidence generation activities. Her areas of expertise and interest include gender, social inclusion and accountability, and governance.
She has a blended experience of implementation, program management, strategic consulting, and research. She has played multidimensional roles across different organizations with varied mandates and priorities. She has supported in the designing, implementation, and evaluation of projects, and has worked with government and non-government (CSO, private sector stakeholders, and donors) stakeholders.
She has also worked in particularly challenging contexts across India on projects supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Department of International Development, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and UNICEF among others.
Divya has a Master’s degree in Gender from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Senior Research fellow
Ruchika Chaudhary is an economist with over eight years of experience at the national as well as the international levels. She has worked extensively on the issues of labour and employment and specifically in the areas of gender equality and non-discrimination in Asia and the Pacific. She specializes in large-dataset and micro-dataset management, econometric analysis and modelling. She has a doctorate in Economics from the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her doctoral thesis explored the complex issue of women’s work in India, in which their labour force participation behavior was examined. This included interviewing and elaborated analysis of domestic workers, as an important group of urban women workers.
Before joining IWWAGE, Ruchika has worked with the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Regional office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, and ILO’s Decent Work Team for South Asia and Country Office for India, New Delhi. She has also worked for the University of Manchester’s research project on ‘Use of Blockchain in ending Child labour’, taught undergraduate courses on economics at the University of Delhi, and conducted research on ‘urban poverty’ at the Institute of Economic Growth, and the National Institute of Urban Affairs. She has been awarded University Grants Commission’s Junior Research Fellowship in Economics. She has published her research in journals, edited books, and participated in various national and international forums.
Research Assistant
Hiya Singh Rajput is a Research Assistant at IWWAGE. She is an Economics graduate from Miranda House, University of Delhi and a post graduate in Economics from Ambedkar University Delhi. She engaged with several government and non-government organisations such as An-gawadi, Girl Rising India, Delhi Queer Pride, The WordsWorth Project and the Enabling Society at Miranda House. She is especially interested in the issues of gender and sexuality. Her long term goal is to work as an economist and policy analyst after completing her post-doctoral stud-ies.
Research Fellow
Anjana Thampi is a Research Fellow at IWWAGE, and works with the Research and Analysis team. She is a development economist motivated to understand the problems of unemployment, women’s under-representation in the labour market, and market and non-market forms of discrimination and exclusion. Her areas of interest include gender, employment, food security and inequality.
Prior to joining IWWAGE, she has worked at the Centre for Sustainable Employment at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. She has done her PhD at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her doctoral thesis assessed whether food provisioning programmes have mitigated the mismatch between economic growth and nutritional indicators in India, and explored the impact of two such programmes on child nutrition and inequality. She has experience in applying statistical tools to large datasets. She has also worked and published on the high and rising levels of wealth inequality in India, and contributes opinion pieces on contemporary issues.
Associate Director
Neelakshi Mann is an Associate Director with IWWAGE at IFMR-LEAD. She leads IWWAGE’s work on women’s economic collectives with the National Rural Livelihood Mission and other partners. She has over 15 years of experience in the development sector. Prior to this, she worked with the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust on achieving gender equitable empowerment through women self-help groups. She was also an adviser to the Minister of Rural Development, Government of India on rural development programs, including MGNREGA — the world’s biggest workfare scheme. With an expertise in the field of public policy monitoring and evaluation, she designed the Ministry’s first independent evaluation structure for its programs. Following that, she worked with USAID, where she helped develop a results and monitoring framework and indicators for India, in its role as a strategic partner under the Feed the Future (FTF) Initiative of the Obama Administration. She has also worked with the Academy for Education Development (AED) in Washington DC to provide support for a project on human trafficking in South Asia.
She has a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Duke University, USA and a Master’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Delhi. She co-authored MGNREGA Sameeksha: An Anthology of Research Studies, 2012.
