India Discrimination Report-2022

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Key Highlights of the report-

• According to the report, gender discrimination is the reason for 98 per cent of employment gap between males and females in India.
• The report highlighted that woman in India despite their same educational qualification and work experience as men will be discriminated in the labour market due to societal and employers’ prejudices.
• The report shows that discrimination causes 100 per cent of employment inequality faced by women in rural areas in labour market and 98 per cent in urban areas.
• The report said self-employed males earn 2.5 times more than females, 83 per cent of which is attributed to gender-based discrimination and 95 per cent of the gap between the earnings of male and female casual wage workers is due to discrimination.
• The report further said that 93 per cent of the gap in earnings of males and females is due to discrimination.
• It says that rural self-employed males earn twice of what females earn in rural areas. Male casual workers earn ₹3,000 per month more than females, 96 per cent of which is attributed to discrimination.
• The academically recognised statistical model applied in the report is now able to quantify the discrimination women face in the labour market. 
• The lower wages for salaried women are due to 67 per cent of discrimination and 33 per cent due to lack of education and work experience.
• The inequality in the labour market for gender and other social categories is not just due to poor access to education or work experience but because of discrimination.
• It has found that discrimination is a driving factor behind low Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) of women in the country.

• These findings are based on the government data on employment and labour from 2004-05 to 2019-20.
• The Oxfam India report refers to unit level data from 61st round National Sample Survey (NSS) data on employment-unemployment (2004-05), the Periodic Labour Force Survey in 2018-19 and 2019-20 and All India Debt and Investment Survey by the government. 
• Oxfam India is a non profit organization working to support child education, empowering women & fighting against inequality in India.

What is the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR)?

• It is the percentage of the population which is either working (employed) or seeking for work (unemployed).
• According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the LFPR is a ‘measure of the proportion of a country’s working-age population that engages actively in the labour market, either by working or looking for work’.

• The breakdown of the labour force (formerly known as economically active population) by sex and age group gives a profile of the distribution of the labour force within a country.
• As per the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, LFPR for women in India was only 25.1% in 2020-21. 
• This is considerably lower than Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa as per the latest World Bank estimates. LFPR for women in South Africa was 46% in 2021.

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