Gender-Based Occupational Segregation: A Barrier for Women’s Economic Empowerment
Gender-based occupational segregation refers to a situation when female and male workers are distributed differently across various occupations in a labour market, resulting in clustering of women or men around certain occupations [1]. Occupational segregation can be distinguished into two forms – horizontal and vertical. While horizontal segregation is measured by considering the differences in distribution of men and women across occupations, vertical segregation considers the distribution of men and women across hierarchies within the same occupation. Gender-based occupational segregation often creates labour market rigidities and economic inefficiencies, which leads to wastage of human capital. This also makes labour markets less flexible towards adjusting to structural changes happening nationally and globally. More specifically, it creates additional barriers for women to join the workforce by limiting the occupational choices available for them. As a result, in a highly segregated labour market, the supply of women tends to be higher for occupations where concentration of women is already high, which negatively impacts their bargaining power. A negative effect of occupational segregation is the creation of gender wage-gaps negatively biassed towards women, especially in developing countries [2]. A study exploring the interlinkages between gender-based segregation and wage differentials in India found that while a relatively large part of the rural wage gap was due to differences in educational attainment between males and females, a considerable part of the urban wage gap was explained by differences in occupational profiles across gender. At the same time, overall discrimination against women was also found to contribute to wage differences [3]. It can also create a mismatch between women’s education attainment and the type of occupation they engage in [4].
Contributing Factors
To a large extent, gender-based occupational segregation reflects the gendered division of labour in societies. Gendered norms are so deep-rooted in people’s minds that they often take up occupations that may align with specific roles expected by society from a particular gender. Women’s occupations are often a mirror of the common stereotypes associated with women and their supposed abilities- caring nature, greater housework skills etc. Without adequate support for care work from the State or the market, women often end up clustering around occupations that can provide them enough flexibility to manage care responsibilities at home. Again, boys tend to take into consideration future expected financial returns more than girls while choosing their educational path and occupations [3]. Moreover, gendered perceptions of employers can also lead to discriminatory hiring practices. Job roles offered to women tend to have either lower prospects of growth or pay less, as compared to those offered to men. Employers often perceive that women cannot give longer hours to jobs or cannot take up highly demanding managerial roles due to their primary responsibility as caregivers.
Another factor contributing to occupational segregation is gendered human capital investment by households, not only in terms of differences in levels of education attainment, but also choices of fields of education across gender. For instance, findings from All India Higher Education Survey (AIHES), 2021-22 [5] revealed that the proportion of females enrolled in technology and engineering related courses was far less than that of males. Similarly, the share of females enrolled in sociology or humanities courses, has been considerably higher than that of males. Therefore, the employability of women for jobs that require technical skills has been relatively low, which eventually contributes to segregation. Again, highly informal work conditions and lack of social security associated with jobs in India’s highly informal labour market, also hinder women’s participation in certain occupations or sectors. For instance, some manufacturing and construction sector occupations demand extensive physical labour without adequate safety standards, social protection measures, or decent work conditions in terms of work hours, basic facilities etc. Moreover, certain sectors are traditionally male-dominated, and women often find it difficult to adjust to workplace practices that may not always be gender-sensitive.
Extent of segregation in India
To capture the level of occupational segregation, a number of measurement indices can be used. While there is a lack of consensus regarding which index reflects occupational segregation better, the Duncan Dissimilarity Index [6], is one of the most widely used measures. It is interpreted as the proportion of women (or men) workers who would have to shift occupations for the occupational distribution of men and women to be the same. For the indices to be comparable over time, the occupational classifications captured in labour surveys have to be identical. India’s latest labour survey (Periodic Labour Force Survey or PLFS, 2022-23) used an updated occupational classification (National Classification of Occupation-2015 or NCO-2015), as compared to the codes used in earlier rounds between 2011-12 and 2021-22. These surveys used occupational codes as defined by NCO-2004. Even though the broad occupations at 1-digit level were comparable, the detailed occupational categories at 3-digit level captured by NCO-2004 and NCO-2015, were not exactly comparable. Again, there was great volatility in the occupational pattern of workers during 2020-21 and 2021-22 as the economy was severely hit by COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, to understand the long-term trend in segregation during the pre-COVID decade, the surveys conducted in 2011-12 and 2019-20, were explored.
Figure 1 presents the distribution of male and female workers across broad occupations during 2019-20. Two occupations with relatively higher concentration of female workers were skilled agricultural & fishery workers, and agricultural labourers, which together constituted 58% of total female workforce in India, compared to 36% of total male workforce. Similarly, school teachers and personal services & care workers had relatively higher concentrations of female workers, although this category constituted a much smaller share of the overall workforce. Personal services & care workers include waiters in restaurants, bartenders, cooks, house-keepers, hair-dressers, beauticians, barbers, child care workers, institution-based and home-based care workers etc. Therefore, it is evident that similar to unpaid care work within the households, women’s engagement in paid care services has also been much higher than men, thereby contributing to occupational segregation.
Figure 1: % Distribution of Male and Female Workers (15 to 59 Years) across Broad Occupations: All India, 2019-20
Considering workers in the 15 to 59 years age-group, India’s overall gender-based occupational segregation in 2019-20 was 35.3%, as per Duncan Dissimilarity Index. The segregation was relatively higher in urban areas (41.7%) as compared to that in rural India (30.6%). Between 2011-12 and 2019-20, occupational segregation had risen from 31.6% to 35.3%, primarily due to increased segregation in rural areas, while that in urban areas had slightly decreased. Again, there was a steep rise in segregation among casual labourers (24.1% to 40.8%), while that among the regular-salaried (28% to 27%) or the self-employed (49% to 47%) did not change much.
Policy Approach towards Occupational Segregation
An integrated labour market with minimum gender-based segregation, can undoubtedly contribute to overall gender equality in a country. Two key concerns for women in a segregated labour market are limited access to work opportunities and lower average earnings compared to men. However,depending on the economic structure of a nation and formalisation of the labour market, desegregation and higher work participation of women, may not always be positively associated. Similarly, the contribution of segregation in accentuating gender wage gap, depends on a country’s wage structure characterised by setting of minimum wages, transparency of wage machinery, and coordination across firms and industries. The extent to which occupational segregation is problematic for women, depends largely on whether women are disadvantaged because of segregation in terms of poor working conditions, and lower wages, reflecting gendered hierarchies of power and discrimination [7]. Unfortunately, this is the case for many developing countries including India. Therefore, there should be a careful consideration regarding whether there should be equal policy focus on reducing gender-based occupational segregation, closing gender wage gap, and increasing female employment, or there should be trade-offs among them. The evidence that occupational segregation can boost female employment at certain stages of development, complicates such policy choices. Further, as compared to other forms of gender inequality, any reduction in occupational segregation takes much longer to achieve. This is reflected in a more even distribution of men and women across sectors in many developing countries as more women join the workforce, but into a limited number of occupations within these sectors [8].
Considering India’s current situation where women’s work participation is much lower than that of men, it might be more effective to focus on policy interventions at facilitating access to decent work conditions for women, as well to provide equal opportunities for growth across all sectors and occupations that women participate in. Immediate emphasis should be to reduce vertical segregation across occupational hierarchies, which can contribute immensely in reducing gender wage gaps. At the same time, there should be a longer-term effort to reduce horizontal segregation so that women can explore a wider range of occupations. However, to achieve this, development of the care sector through public and private sector engagement, in order to make care services affordable and accessible across all economic strata, is crucial. In parallel, there should be equal focus on awareness generation through multiple channels to reduce and eliminate some of the traditional gendered norms that have impeded women’s overall empowerment and agency-building.
This blog has been authored by Mridusmita Bordoloi, Economist, IWWAGE
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