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IWWAGE-Institute for What Works to Advance Gender Equality

Opportunities for Transformative Financing for Women and Girls

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, women and girls in India have faced disproportionate economic and social impacts-ranging from job losses and depleted savings to increased unpaid care work and heightened vulnerability to violence. Recognising the urgent need for a gender-responsive recovery, IWWAGE and The Quantum Hub (TQH) hosted a pre-budget consultation on 1 October 2020 to inform the Union Budget 2021-22.

The consultation brought together experts to identify key policy priorities for advancing women’s economic empowerment. Drawing on these discussions, the resulting policy paper outlines actionable recommendations across four key areas:
– Expansionary fiscal policies to finance priorities for women and vulnerable groups
– Strengthening gender-disaggregated data and evidence
– Enhancing institutional mechanisms for gender budgeting
– Sector-specific investments in women-focused programmes

The paper also highlights relevant ministries responsible for implementing these recommendations, with the goal of ensuring a more inclusive and resilient recovery for all.

Impact of Covid-19 On Working Women

The Indian economy has been plunged into severe economic uncertainties created by the global pandemic COVID-19. At the same time, there are also discussions on how the eruption, the spread and the aftermath of the novel virus will affect women. The numbers of women at work, their sustenance at the workplace, their pay, their career graph was already a matter of grave concern and a much-discussed global issue. Now, in light of the COVID-19 scenario, the following questions become imperative to address: Are we foreseeing worse days ahead? What has been the impact of COVID-19 on working women, both in urban and rural areas? Which are the sectors where women have become dispensable? How do we ensure that women are not further marginalised in these unprecedented times? To answer these questions, one must start by analysing the data and underlying trends of women’s employment in India, including in sectors where they tend to be employed. We also need to scrutinise the long run repercussions the economic fallout of the pandemic will have on gender equality, both during different phases of the lockdown and thereafter. This note attempts to deliberate upon the aforesaid issues and reflects on some measures that can help bring about recovery and resilience for women.

Making a Gender Responsive Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme

The pandemic and subsequent lockdown measures in India have taken a toll on all aspects of life, particularly on livelihoods. While job losses have been observed in both rural and urban sectors, recent figures show that there has been an increase in creation of non-salaried jobs in rural areas, but generation of wage employment in the urban sector has remained a challenge. Over 21 million salaried jobs have been lost in India (out of a base of 86 million overall salaried jobs) between April and August 2020. This evidence points to the fact that urban livelihoods have taken a huge hit due to the COVID-19 crisis, and the ability of the urban sector to create new jobs to compensate for these losses is currently under a cloud. Women have been disproportionately affected by job losses. A recent report tracking the pandemic’s influence on informal work in India suggests that more women were out of work post-lockdown compared to men. Given the largely positive effects of MGNREGA on women workers, many policy experts have recommended designing and implementing an urban employment guarantee programme to alleviate the problems faced especially by urban women workers, particularly those in the informal economy. Recognising such a need for support in urban areas, various state governments have stepped in with their own urban employment guarantee schemes. The details of these schemes are provided in the brief.

Strengthening Socio-Economic Rights of Women in the Informal Economy: The SEWA Approach in West Bengal and Jharkhand

Women working in India’s informal sector face several vulnerabilities and are often denied decent working conditions and wages. This further exacerbates inequities and pushes them towards high risk poverty. The situation is worse for women belonging to socially disadvantaged castes and communities. Evidence from India and other contexts shows that the working poor in the informal economy, particularly women, need to organise themselves to overcome the structural disadvantages they face. Organisation gives these otherwise marginalised workers the power of solidarity and a platform to be seen and heard by decision makers with the power to affect their lives.

Since 1972, the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) is working as an organisation of poor women workers and a movement to create better alternatives. SEWA is currently operative in many states across the country and has a membership base of nearly 2 million women workers in the informal economy, comprising domestic workers, street vendors, agricultural workers, construction labourers, salt workers, beedi and papad rollers and such other vulnerable categories. SEWA’s programme in Jharkhand and West Bengal aims to increase the collective bargaining strength of women, particularly those working as agricultural workers, domestic workers and construction labourers (in the former state) and female beedi rollers in West Bengal. The programme aims to improve women’s access to and understanding of basic services, such as health and sanitation, and also increase their ability to demand local accountability through nurturing of grassroots leadership. The study tries to understand the impact that various components of its programme have had on informal women workers in Jharkhand and West Bengal. The women included in the study were predominantly engaged in beedi rolling, domestic work, construction work, agriculture and street vending.