India’s female work participation rate is better than we thought

Let’s start with the Periodic Labor Force Survey (PLFS), India’s official labor force survey. It has been conducted annually since 2017-18, a laudable improvement over the once in four-five years Employment Unemployment Survey (EUS) previously conducted by the National Sample Survey (NSS). The female LFPR decreased from 40% to 30% between 1999 and 2011-12 and has increased from 2017-18 to 2020-21. The 2011-12 (NSS-EUS) and 2017-18 (PLFS) numbers are not comparable due to methodological differences. This point is often overlooked and journalists draw a sloping line as if the survey was conducted under the same method for two decades in a row.

According to the PLFS, the LFPR is the percentage of our working age population engaged in work or making a concerted effort to seek ‘work’ or ‘available for work’ when available. ‘Work’ includes self-employment (subsistence agriculture and firewood collection, poultry farming, etc., for self-consumption), regular wage/salaried employment, and casual labour.

The way we measure employment through survey design and content can make a significant difference to final LFPR estimates, and it matters more to measure female LFPR than male LFPR. We highlight three main measurement issues: overly broad categories, reliance on a single question to classify labor force status, and narrow approaches to limiting productive work to labor force participation.

First, the use of overly broad categories linking productive work (collection of firewood, poultry, etc.) with domestic duties can exclude a significant proportion of women in the labor force from the labor-force category. For example, unless the production of primary goods is identified as the main activity by the respondent, the PLFS questionnaire would classify women who perform both household activities and the production/collection of primary goods as labor force . Adding the proportion of such women (who may have been incorrectly identified as part of the labor force) to the official LFPR gives an “enhanced female LFPR” of 46.2% for 2020-21, much higher than the 32.5% estimated Is. By the traditional definition, Steven Kapsos and others made a similar effort in an International Labor Organization (ILO) research paper in 2014, to arrive at a female LFPR of 56.4% in India for 2012, a lower of 31.2% for 2012. compared to official estimates. ,

Second, the survey design relies heavily on one question to measure an individual’s labor force status, which, given the large rural population and literacy levels, eliminates the scope for correcting any errors in self-reporting. Unlike the ILO’s recommendations, the PLFS questionnaire contains no additional questions (‘retrieval questions’) to double-check individuals’ labor force status, relying heavily on how individuals identify themselves in the first place. does.

Third, there is a need to broaden the horizon of measurement work, which constitutes the whole universe of productive activities along with employment. According to the latest ILO standards, limiting productive work to labor force participation is narrow and the only measures serve as market products. It ignores the value of women’s unpaid household work, which can be viewed as expense-saving work such as gathering firewood, cooking, teaching children, etc., and contributes significantly to the standard of living of the household. . Overvaluation of paid work and devaluation of unpaid work is neither gender-neutral nor culturally neutral.

For example, in the context of rapidly aging populations in the West, as Diane Coyle wrote in 2016 (bit.ly/3snNH4f), decisions on optimal approaches to elder care need to be informed by data . The desirability of public or private provision of paid or unpaid services cannot be based on ignorance or favoritism.

Finally, the use of international agencies’ estimates of India’s women’s LFPR is also troublesome. India’s women’s LFPR is widely cited as too low, citing the ILO’s estimate of 19% for 2020. However, this is a model estimate of the ILO (not an actual estimate of the PLFS, the official Survey of India). It is essentially a black box in terms of how and why it differs from our official estimates. Their official warnings, “imposed observations are not based on national data, are subject to high uncertainty, and should not be used for country comparisons or rankings”, are easily ignored by commentators.

In order to improve the overall LFPR of women, there is a need to eliminate gender-based disadvantage to enable free choice for women. But India’s female LFPR is not as low as is commonly believed. We need more psychological and statistical validation of this, along with the correction of the methodological issues mentioned above.

These are the personal views of the authors.

V. Ananth Nageswaran, Harish Kumar Kallega and Diksha Supyal Bisht are the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India and officers of the Indian Economic Service, respectively.