Missing women in India's labour force
the premium that men used to command over women in terms of per-day wage has shrunk significantly. This is seen most prominently in ploughing but is also true for sowing, weeding, transplanting and winnowing. We note that across many agricultural activities, the average wages were sometimes lower than the minimum wages legally specified then; the situation has dramatically changed where average wages now are above the minimum wages specified. Here, it can be seen that economic enforcement has been more powerful than the legal statute, which was patchily implemented.
Even as the mechanisation of agriculture has taken place over the last decade, there is still significant physical labour involved. Labour productivity has not meaningfully increased in many of the occupations noted above. In such a situation, women, whose wages have gone up much more than men’s, become less profitable to employ for a farm-owner. We hypothesise that the implementation of minimum wage has meant workers with low productivity have been priced out of the market, reflecting in fewer employment opportunities for women at higher price points.
We note that women form a disproportionately large group in MGNREGA person-days as compared to their proportion in the rural labour force. This leads us to believe that women who are increasingly being priced out of the agricultural labour market are taking shelter in MGNREGA work schemes. Ideally, the focus should be on improving the productivity of the female workforce via skill development: This would enable them to move beyond the minimum-wage band and command employment
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