New Delhi: All the Indian women out there at work, take a bow! For, you have just beaten your male counterparts hands down in the employment growth rate.
Indian women have outshone men in terms of employment growth rate with a 3.35 per cent rise in employment between 1998 and 2004 as against a fall in case of males, which has been close to 8 per cent, an Eco Pulse Study on "Women Employment Growth Rate and Gender Budgeting" has revealed.
And to top it all, the Indian public sector is today hiring women much more aggressively than the private sector, the study conducted by the Associated Chambers of Commerce or Industry or ASSOCHAM, says.
According to the study, the number of women employed in public sector has risen from 27.63 lakh in 1998 to 28.9 lakh in 2004, witnessing a growth of close to 4.6 per cent.
Private sector added 0.33 lakh women staff with a growth of 1.64 per cent over 1998, taking the total number to 20.44 lakh.
The growth rate of employment in public sector has remained positive for women in six out of seven years from 1998 to 2004 as against a negative rate in all of the seven years for men.
Keeping pace with the growth in GDP, the total number of women employed in public and private sector has increased to 49.34 lakh in 2004 from 47.74 lakh in 1998, while the number of men employed has fallen to 215.09 lakh in 2004 from 233.92 lakh in 1998.
"Growing employment opportunities for women mark a significant improvement in the social status and gender justice besides imparting economic power,” ASSOCHAM President, Venugopal N Dhoot, says.
Public sector added women in the workforce at an average rate of 0.83 per cent per year simultaneously dropping men at an average rate of 1.34 per cent during 1998-2004.
Year-wise growth rates for women were 1.28 per cent, 1.74 per cent, 1.64 per cent 0.07 per cent, 0.98 per cent, 0.62 per cent and -0.52 per cent respectively.
The only year with a negative rate for women was 2004, which saw 0.15 lakh women being laid off by the public sector, constituting 0.52 per cent of the previous year’s female employees. The decline in case of males was much sharper at nearly 2.35 per cent.
The private sector was also biased towards women with the growth rate in employment being positive in five out of seven years during the said period. The year-wise rates were 5.34 per cent, 0.35 per cent, 2.38 per cent, 1.16 per cent, -1.96 per cent, 0.73 per cent and -0.97 per cent respectively during the same period.
Apparently, 2002 and 2004 were the only exceptions. The men had a difficult deal in private organisations as well having faced a negative growth in all of the seven years.
The sharpest rise in the addition of female employees in private sector during the time-frame was in the year 1998. Private sector augmented women employees by more than 5.3 per cent in the year, thereby making an addition of 1.02 lakh taking the total to 20.11 lakh.
Males, however, bore the brunt of retrenchment, with the sector cutting on the male staff by more than half a per cent.
The graph of women employees in organised sector in urban areas, too, is on its way up, but there has not been much improvement in case of their rural counterparts.
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