UNIT 1 GENDER ISSUES IN WORK

Structure
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Objectives
1.3 Changing Gender Composition of the Work Force
1.4 Gendered Segregation of Work
1.5 Gender Discrimination at the Workplace
1.5.1 Wage Gap
1.5.2 Glass Ceiling
1.5.3 Sexual Harassment
1.5.4 Double Burden
1.6 Women and Work in Rural Areas
1.7 Redefining Work
1.8 Unpaid Work
1.8.1 Measuring Unpaid Work
1.8.2 Gender segregation of Labour in Unpaid Work
1.9 Conclusion
1.10 References
1.11 Answers to check your progress

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The study of gender issues in work is complex and complicated because of a variety of
reasons. In fact when one looks at work from a gender perspective, the very definition of
what constitutes work becomes a contested area. Moreover, it is now widely accepted
that work is not a gender-neutral space where qualifications, skills and performance
determine an individual‘s entry and progress in any occupation/profession. In the real
world, gender plays a crucial and critical role in the options available, choices made,
wages earned, and opportunities for advancement available. The situation also greatly
varies across different parts of the world, different regions, different economic classes
and different sectors.

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Gender issues in work gain significance, particularly as global economic restructuring
due to rapid paced technological progress, internationalism of products and trade, and
growing informalization of work have seen an increase in women‘s participation in the
labour force while men‘s participation has decreased slightly.

Labour force participation is often seen as the prime indicator (and cause) of changes in
women‘s status as employment determines their access to resources and their ability to
make independent decisions. Work plays an important part in determining women‘s and
men‘s relative wealth, power and prestige, and health. It has, however, been segregated
by gender, which has in turn, generated gender inequalities in the distribution of
resources, benefits and responsibilities. Generally speaking work has been divided in to
‗men‘s‘ work and ‗women‘s‘ work. This segregation of work by gender has been
practiced and accepted through the centuries, in all cultures.

Within the labour market, gender segregation is highly complex and is reflected at all
levels. However, much of women's work remains unrecognised, uncounted and unpaid,
thus invisible: work in the home, in agriculture, food production and the marketing of
home-made products, for example. This whole arena of unpaid work is often neglected
because first of all, until recently most of it was not considered work; and secondly,
because it is much more difficult to quantify in terms of time and value. Since it is
women who are doing the major part of all unpaid work, this has led to a severe
undervaluation of women‘s contributions to the society and economy.

This unit tries to bring to the fore the issues in the world of work when viewed from a
gender perspective.

1.2 OBJECTIVES

After studying this Unit, You should be able to:

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  analyze the origin and implications of gender segregation of work;
 discuss types of gender discrimination at the workplace;
 explain the importance of redefining work from a gender perspective; and
 discuss the importance of unpaid work.

1.3 THE CHANGING GENDER COMPOSITION OF THE WORK FORCE

Examining work through a gendered lens becomes important with the advent of a new
world of work that is trans-bordered and has seen a change in the composition of the
labour force. Perhaps it could be said that the most significant change in the relationship
of gender and work is numerical—the enormous shift in the gender composition of the
labour force. Women comprise an increasing share of the labour force in almost all
regions of the world. During the last few decades the proportion of economically active
women has also increased in unparalleled numbers with in the global workforce, while
men‘s participation rate has been decreasing slightly.

Table 1 Labour force participation rates (percentage)

Year Men (%) Women (%)

1980 87.5 57.4

World 1995 86.0 60.1
Total 2000 85.5 60.7
2010 84.6 61.5

Source: The World’s Women 2000: Trends and Statistics. United Nations

It can be observed from table above that women‘s participation in the labour force has
been steadily increasing from 57.4% in 1980 to 60.7% in 2000 while there has been a
marginal decrease in men‘s participation rates during the same years. In what manner this
decrease in participation has affected men‘s life is an important research area that
requires attention as this trend is projected in 2010 as well.

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Women have entered every area of the work force, and in unprecedented numbers at
every level through all the major professions. The impact has been enormous and has
altered women‘s labour market status in recent years. According to World Bank
estimates, from 1960 to 1997, women have increased their numbers in the global labour
force by 126%. 1

The United Nations statistics surveys indicate that wage and salaried work is the
predominant form of employment for both women and men in most regions except in
sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia.2 India is one such country where women‘s
participation in the workforce continues to remain quite low, both in absolute and relative
terms. As per the recent estimates, 28.7 percent of women as against 54.7 percent of men
participated in workforce in 2004-05.

Table 2: Women Workforce Participation Rates in India, 1971-2005

Census NSSO
Year % Year %
1971 13.9 1972-73 28.2
1981 19.8 1983 21.6
1991 22.3 1993-94 28.6
2001 25.7 2004-05 28.7

Sources: Visaria 1998, p. 24 for Census figures up to 1981,

www.Censusindia.net for 2001 provisional figure and NSSO 2006, p. 76 for
various years.

The table suggests that a little more than one-fourth of women (28.7 percent) in India
participate in workforce at present. This is only marginally higher than the Women
Workforce Participation Rates (WWPR) of 28.2 percent in 1972-73. 3 As a consequence
of this low participation, Indian women continue to form a majority of the Indian poor.

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Today, women make up about 42% of the estimated global working population, making
them indispensable as contributors to national and global economies. However, they are
disproportionately engaged in non-standard forms of work, such as temporary and casual
employment, part-time jobs, home-based work, self employment and working in micro-
enterprises.

The main factors leading to the rise in women‘s participation in the labour force have
been: the availability of a wider choice for women; an increased pressure on them to
contribute to the family income, and often survival; the need of economies for a type of
labour that women can provide. However, there are many differences between the
industrialized and industrializing regions, especially in the reasons why women work,
and the reward they gain from it.

In most industrialized countries, opportunities for women in general were restricted until
the Second World War and the two decades of rapid economic growth that followed. The
expansion both in services and in part-time employment matched women‘s needs and
experience, thereby encouraging their participation. The pattern of working life has seen
a tremendous change: before the 1950s, most women workers were young and unmarried,
or were much older with grown up children. In later years, economic activity became
more continuous—that is, with fewer, and shorter, breaks for raising a family—and it is
no longer unusual (or illegal) for married women to be employed.4

In developing countries, industrialization tends to coexist with agriculture, and family

businesses. With the exception of some rapidly industrializing Asian countries, the
change has been in the nature of women‘s work, rather than in the number of women
working. There has been a significant movement of women from subsistence farming or
other unpaid activity to labour in both the formal and informal sectors. For most women
in developing countries, a working life has always been longer, and more continuous.
Women, especially in rural areas, continuously work until the end of their lives, hardly
taking a break from their work routine even to have a baby.

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At the same time, pressure has increased on women everywhere to make up or provide
the family wage. Women have been at the receiving end of the consequences of debt,
inflation, economic stagnation and unemployment. Across the globe, as prices rise and
incomes fall, women increase their working hours and diversify their activities to ensure
the family‘s survival. There has been an undeniable ‗feminization of poverty‘; more and
more women are poor, and more of the poor are women. It is estimated that women make
up at least 60 per cent of the world's working poor and as long as there are inequalities in
labour markets, women will find it harder than men to escape poverty.

1.4. GENDERED SEGREGATION OF WORK

In all cultures, society has traditionally divided work roles for women and men, and even
though, in the last few decades, gender work demarcations have, to a marginal extent
changed, women and men commonly perform different tasks and work in different
sectors.

Gender division of labour occurs because a precedent sanctioned by society exists where
women are allotted one set of gender roles and men another. Gender roles exist because
communities and societies have created social norms of behaviour, values, and attitudes
that are considered appropriate for women and men and the relations between them and
are perceptions of sex differences. For example, childbearing is a female sex role because
men cannot bear children. Although both men and women can rear children, these duties
are socially assigned.

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There are numerous theories on why sex differences exist. Those that support biological
factors argue that people behave as they do primarily because they are biologically male
or female. But especially within the context of work, sex role behaviour clearly follows
no logical pattern based on biological differences. For example, men are less likely than
women to change diapers, even though they possess the necessary skills. Similarly, it is

―On the whole, research evidence on the validity of gender stereotypes suggests that
they are often poor representations of individual men or women. For example,
male-female differences in most cognitive abilities and in most basic personality
traits (except for traits such as masculinity vs. femininity, which are directly linked
to sex and gender) are generally small, in comparison with the variability within
genders. In areas where there are relatively large male-female differences (e.g.,
likelihood of working in child-care settings), it is likely that stereotypes and socially
constructed definitions of what men and women should do are themselves
significant causes of these differences. Although male-female differences in many
areas are relatively small, reliance on stereotypes can lead people to exaggerate
these differences and to perceive men‘s and women‘s behaviour quite differently,
even if the behaviour itself is quite similar across gender lines.‖5

difficult to explain away the hours that fully employed women spend cooking and washing
dishes at home as a biological imperative. Gender segregation is a form of social segregation that
biology cannot explain.

Gender segregation is the process in which women and men end up in different types of
occupation, so that two different types of labour markets may be said to exist, female and
male. This segregation has evolved from the concept of Gender marking which takes
place by a process in which the qualifications and characteristics of an occupation
become associated with gender. This gives us an idea of which gender a person should
have for a particular job. Gender marking becomes apparent when occupations become
female or male. In theory, gender segregation may be seen as a result of gender marking
of qualifications, characteristics, occupations and work functions.

Gender segregation is highly complex and is reflected at all levels—horizontal, vertical

and internal. Internal gender segregation is when women and men are employed in the
same occupation (and in some cases by the same employers) but carry out different work
functions. This means that even an apparently gender-integrated occupation may actually

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be highly gender-segregated in practice.6

Horizontal Segregation: Horizontal segregation is when women work in certain

occupations and industries and men in others. For example, a large number of women
work in services, especially the personal and caring services, while women‘s
participation in the industrial sector is generally much lower than men‘s, and
concentrated in a relatively narrow range of labour- intensive light industries. This
matches with the gender roles assigned to men and women by society.

Vertical Segregation: Within the same occupation, men tend to occupy the higher
managerial positions and women comparatively lower positions; this hierarchical division
is referred to as vertical segregation. Even where an occupation is to some extent mixed,
women are usually in the less responsible, less secure and less well-paid jobs. On the
other hand, even in occupation numerically dominated by women, men are still often
found in the management positions; for example, the principal of a primary school.

Worldwide, the proportion of women in managerial and decision making positions is low,
the rule being the higher you go up, the fewer the women. In 1994, Susan Bullock has
written that ―Women make up less than 5 per cent of the world‘s heads of state, heads of
major corporations and top executives in international organizations; of the top 1,000
corporations in the United States, two are headed by women. Women represent, on
average, under 10 per cent of members of parliament and 20 per cent of middle-level
mangaers.‖7 This trend is pretty much the same today.

Gender segregation is the chief obstacle facing women who seek to enter the labour
force. This is a form of discrimination that has led to gender inequality. Reflected in work
as an unequal gender division of labour, it encompasses situations in which there is an
unequal division of the rewards of labour by sex. The most obvious pattern in such a
division of labour is that women are mostly confined to unpaid domestic work and unpaid
food production, whereas men dominate in cash crop production and wage employment.

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With in paid work, women are more likely to work in the informal sector, for example in
domestic work, street vending, and home-based work.

The Informal Sector

The informal sector is often spoken of as a female sector. The extent to which this holds
varies across regions and over time. In most countries women‘s possibilities for entering
the formal sector remain even more limited than men‘s and the informal sector may be
their only option. However, some women opt for or continue in the informal sector not
necessarily because of a lack of choice, but because of the flexibility of working
arrangements (especially in work timings) and a wider range of opportunities.

Women in self employment rely on the skills and experience they already have, for
example, in food processing and trading, sewing, domestic tasks etc. For women, it is
always a crucial balancing act where their domestic responsibilities cannot be abandoned.
This leads them to turn either their homes into a workplace or their place of work into a
home: small children may spend the whole day at a construction site where their mother
is working.

It is important to note that gendered division of labour also exists within the informal
sector. Women are especially numerous in the lowest-paid and most exploited categories
of work: in small enterprises where they may work in sweatshop conditions or as
outworkers; in the simplest types of self employment, with minimal capital, tools, and
raw materials; as unpaid family workers; in domestic work; and in commercial sex work.
The range of jobs women perform is as limited in the informal sector as it is everywhere.
―It is not that women lack initiative or business ability; on the contrary, the way women
are able to scrape an income together on the basis of almost no inputs but their own
labour and ingenuity inspires admiration and respect. But when the margins are too tight,
it is almost impossible to turn survival activities into growth.‖8

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For many years certain assumptions existed like women either could not do a job
or that they did not need to do it. The consequence of this kind of thinking has
been that sex segregation has affected women‘s and men‘s concentration in
different occupations, industries and levels in workplace hierarchies. This has led
to sex discrimination and has perpetuated gender inequality within the world of
work.

Check Your Progress Exercise 1

Note: i. Use this space given below to answer the question.
ii. Compare your answer with the one given at the end of this unit
1. Women‘s participation in the labour force has been steadily increasing. Discuss.

_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
2. What do we mean by gendered segregation of work?

_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
3. What is Gender marking? What do we mean by horizontal, vertical and internal
segregation of work?
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________

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1.5 GENDER DISCRIMINATION AT THE WORKPLACE

―Gender discrimination includes behaviours occurring in the workplace that limit

the target person‘s ability to enter, remain in, succeed in, or progress in a job and
that are primarily the result of the target person‘s gender.‖9

1.5.1 Wage Gap: Income discrimination

One of the direct consequences of gender segregation in paid work is wage differentials.
Gender based difference in pay is a definitive sign of inequality at the workplace. In most
countries, equal pay legislation exists; however, the gender segregation of work makes
allows the easy application of different remuneration rates to ‗men‘s work‘ and ‗women‘s
work‘.
Women tend to be in jobs that are poorly paid and lack a career structure; even in mixed
workforce jobs, women are more likely to be at the levels of lower responsibility.
Further, there are a high percentage of women who work on a part-time or temporary
basis. Some other factors that contribute to women‘s lower wages include the constraints
on women that do not allow them to do overtime, night shifts etc., the interruption due to
pregnancy that affects accumulation of seniority etc. Trade Unions have usually failed to
take up these concerns because they have been male-dominated, and these issues have not
yet entered the mainstream of their agenda.

Women's access to paid work is crucial to their efforts for economic equality and to their
sense of self and well being. But women's paid work is generally valued as less important
than men's. Women still earn considerably less than men and often find themselves in
low-status jobs with few benefits. Professions that are male dominated tend to have
higher wages; professions that are female dominated tend to have lower wages.

It is only a matter of observing what happens to a particular occupation that faces a

change in its gender composition to study the impact of gender segregation on wages the.
For example, clerical work was once a practically all-male labour force that paid

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reasonably well as it was considered a highly skilled occupation. Today the gender
distribution has changed in many countries and, most clerical workers are female. As a
result, clerical work was re evaluated as less demanding of skill and less valuable to an
organization; thus workers‘ wages fell.10

The exact opposite process may be observed with relations to the occupation of the
computer programmer. When this occupation was in it nascent stage, women were hired
as keypunch operators because the job seemed to resemble clerical work. After
programming was recognized as ―intellectually demanding‖ requiring complex skills in
abstract logic, and mathematics etc., all of which, sociologist Katharine Donato observed,
―women used to perform in their work,‖ it became attractive to men, who began to enter
the field and thus drove wages up considerably.11

1.5.2 Glass Ceiling

More women are hired at the lower rungs of an organization. The low status of this work
means women exert less control over their work environment and have lower decision
making powers. There is persistent discrimination against women in promotion which
keeps women in low wage positions with little opportunities for upward mobility.
Women thus face a double obstacle in attempting to achieve workplace equality. The first
is that of centuries old gender ideologies that bar them from entering well paying
occupations so that they are pushed into less-paying sectors of the economy. The second
obstacle arises ―when they enter those well-paying fields, they are prevented from
moving up. This is what is known as the ‗glass-ceiling‘‖.12

―Men sometimes resent assertive, unemotional women and perceive them to be acting
like men. Yet, men also judge women who are passive and emotional as being unsuitable
for management.‖ (Kanter 1977a) So women often have to walk a fine line and work
towards being perceived as tough, and yet ―feminine‖ in order to be accepted as a ―good
manager‖. It has been seen in several cases when men and women who started out on a

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career path together, find themselves in very different levels after ten years—In most
cases, men will be at a more senior level than the women.

Why are women underrepresented in management? Some reasons for women are under
representation in senior positions:

 Women themselves: Lack of education and training; lack of a continuous career

as a result of breaks for child-rearing, and a preference for part-time working; lack
of the confidence or drive to succeed.
 Personnel policies and organizational career structures that are shaped by the
traditions of a male career: lack of provision for career breaks and re-entry; lack
of appropriate provision for women‘s management development; and lack of
provision for flexible contracts at higher levels.
 Organisational climate and the attitudes of senior management: lack awareness of
the pervasiveness of masculine assumptions; lack of interest in the need for
strategic change to increase the utilization of female resources; and lack of
support for the few women who do succeed.(Adapted from The Journal of General
Management)

1.5.3 Sexual Harassment

According to the EEOC, sexual harassment is defined as follows13

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or
physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when (1)
submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or
condition of an individual‘s employment, (2) submission to or rejection of such
conduct by an individual is used as a basis for employment decisions affecting
such individual, or (3) such conduct has the purpose or effect of substantially
interfering with an individual‘s work performance or creating an intimidating,
hostile, or offensive working environment. (EEOC, 1980, p. 33)

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While there are instances of female harassers, sexual harassment cases in the
workplace predominantly involve male harassers and female victims. Victims of
sexual harassment may experience a number of negative consequences such as
lowered productivity, lowered self-esteem, absenteeism, depression etc.

In India, the Supreme Court judgment of 1997, popularly known as the Vishakha
Guidelines was the landmark judgement in which the court ruled that the issue of sexual
harassment at the workplace is a human rights issue and not merely a criminal one. The
judgement clearly states that sexual harassment includes behaviours such as physical
contact, sexually coloured remarks, unwelcome verbal or non verbal communications of
a sexual nature, and so on. It also defined the workplace in a broader sense, rather than
limiting it to a certain geographical area. However, even today, cases of sexual
harassment largely go unreported as women do not want to be seen as ―trouble makers‖
or attract unnecessary attention. This is accentuated by the fact that strict action, or in fact
any action is rarely taken by the organisation against the perpetrator. Many times, women
prefer to leave a job rather than register a complaint of sexual harassment.

1.5.4 Double Burden

The entry of women onto the labour market has not meant any lessening of domestic chores.
Most women are still solely or mostly in charge of housework and child care. In order to fulfil all
their responsibilities at the workplace and at home, women end up working longer hours. This
phenomenon is called ‗double shift‘ or ‗double burden‘.

―Even though children are tomorrow‘s workers and citizens, they are seen today as the
private and personal responsibility of their families. The fact that child care has been
made widely available under certain circumstances shows that its provision is primarily a
matter of employment policy and political will—or lack of it. During the Second World
War, for example, facilities became available as increasing numbers of women were
needed to work in factories and essential services.‖14

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 Check Your Progress Exercise 2
Note: i. Use this space given below to answer the question.
ii. Compare your answer with the one given at the end of this unit
1.
State some consequences of Gender segregation in paid work.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. Discuss the issue of income discrimination
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3. Why are women underrepresented in management?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

1.6 WOMEN AND WORK IN RURAL AREAS

Roughly 3 out of 4 women the world over live in rural areas, the majority of them
working in agriculture or related activities. Women not only grow crops, but also pick
fruit and tea; look after cattle and poultry; weave, spin, and make pottery; and sell goods.
This is usually as unpaid workers on family farms or enterprises; in most cases where
they are engaged in paid labour, it is casual, temporary or seasonal. Though women‘s
waged employment has been increasing in many Asian countries, their wages remain
much lower than those earned by men.

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―Women directly produce about half the world‘s food and they process and prepare
almost all of it.‖15 The problem of balancing multiple tasks is accentuated in the case of
rural women, most of them being involved in the production of food for family
consumption, and also for sale or exchange; many work on others‘ farms for wages; they
also trade or make handicrafts; and of course, there is no respite from the daily domestic
chores.

Rural women also bear the brunt of several other factors such as very early marriages,
more children and poorer health. Both infant and maternal mortality are higher in rural
areas. School enrolment is lower; In India, for example, chances of a rural girl child being
enrolled in a school, and continuing education beyond class 8 are much lower than those
of her urban counterpart. Rural women have poorer wages, more insecure employment,
and longer hours of work. Customs and traditional practices often have a tighter hold—in
some cases directly threatening women‘s health, social status and freedom.

Official statistics on the participation of women in food and agricultural production are
still not available with the required amount of detail. This means that food and
agricultural policies, and rural development programmes are gender neutral, and do not
adequately address the concerns and needs of women. ―Planners tend to underestimate or
ignore:
 the nature and scope of women‘s separate and autonomous operations;
 the extent of the reliance of men on women‘s labour and inputs;
 the uneven distribution of income and resources within the household.‖16

1.7 REDEFINING WORK

In our discussion of work-related statistics, we must first of all define what constitutes
work. Is work really only that which is done outside the home and that is paid for? What
about those many tasks that women do in and near their homes? In rural areas, women
and girls walk long distances o fetch water; but because this does not fall in the purview
of ‗economic activity,‘ it was not previously categorised as work.

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Women, do both productive and reproductive work, and these categories often merge into
each other. In fact their reproductive work contributes to production. The work that
women put in subsidizes the production and maintenance of the work-force. ―Because
women ‗labour for love‘, society in general and employers in particular are saved the
expense of the upkeep of the workforce, either in terms of providing communal services
– canteens, child care, laundries – or in terms of paying wages high enough to cover the
real costs. Their ‗non- productive‘ work in fact makes an enormous economic
contribution.‖17

It has now been acknowledged that by not recognising women‘s multiple activities,
gender inequality is being institutionalized and perpetuated. It is important to recognize
and value not only the economic contributions of women, but also their social
contributions—child care, looking after the elderly and sick, and the numerous other
tasks they perform on a daily basis for their family and community.

There is now a much wider acknowledgement of the scope and significance of women‘s
work, and the need for rigorous gender analysis. The absence of sex disaggregated
statistics for employment and unemployment; the use of occupational categories that
overlook many of women‘s activities, skills and contributions; and broadening the
definition of what constitutes economic activity (including cultural, regional and seasonal
variations)—these issues have entered the mainstream consciousness of policy makers
and planners, and are beginning to be addressed.

The undercounting of female economic activity, and lack of mechanisms for measuring
unpaid work have received deserved attention. Some of the steps that have been taken in
this direction include: an International Labour Organisation (ILO) convention on labour
statistic (1985); revising to the International Standard Classification of Occupations
(ISCO); and efforts by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) to
change the guidelines for the World Programme of Agricultural Censuses.18
In India, in censuses prior to 2001, women‘s economic pursuits were not recorded/
reported adequately, resulting in low female work participation rate (FWPR). In the 2001

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Census, several measures were taken to address the shortcomings by taking measures for
gender sensitization of both the collectors of data and the people in general.

What defines valuable work?

―Judgments about what is valuable, good, and important in a society usually

reflect the preferences, biases, experiences, and values of the groups in society that
have the most power and influence…. It should come as no surprise that the
activities which are most valuable or seen as most important in the workplace
(e.g., leading others, exercising authority, controlling resources, dealing with
things rather than people) are all consistent with the male stereotype, whereas
activities that are seen as less valuable (e.g., dealing with children, helping others)
are often consistent with the female stereotype. The workplace has historically
been the domain of males, and widely accepted definitions of the types of work
that are more or less valuable are value judgments that reflect the preferences,
experiences, and biases of males.

Judgments about the value of different types of work are essentially

subjective, and as societies change and evolve, these judgments may also
change. There often is little about the work itself that determines its
value… Whether ―women‘s work‖ will be perceived as more valuable in
the future remains to be seen.‖19

Since a lot of the work that women do is unpaid, it is important to understand what
unpaid work is, and how it can be measured.

1.8 UNPAID WORK

All work is not paid for. All people who perform work, paid or unpaid are economically
active, but this is only a recent understanding. A satisfactory definition for unpaid work
is yet to emerge because much of what it comprises is not reflected in labour statistics
and therefore is invisible.

The concern for developing an inclusive understanding of what comprised unpaid work is
now reflected in the System of National Accounts (SNA) production boundary as
follows:
Unpaid work includes unpaid activities such as:

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  Work done in a family enterprise or agricultural holding on an unpaid basis
 Primary production of goods primarily for own-household consumption
including subsistence farming— example: preparing the soil, sowing, planting,
and harvesting crops; gathering fruit, wild fruit, medicinal and other plants;
tending, feeding or hunting animals mainly to obtain meat, milk, hair, skin or
other products in or around a household compound; gathering firewood and
fetching water; breeding or catching fish and cultivating or gathering other forms
of aquatic life; and storing and carrying out some basic processing of products.
 Production of services for income and other production of goods that are not
related to formal employment. Examples include: work done on a contractual
basis on residential premises, as a pieceworker or outworker and assisting a
family member or relative with such work; building shelters and making simple
tools, clothes and utensils for household use;
What is still left out is:
 Meal preparation, laundry and clothes care, household maintenance,
management and shopping for own household
 Care of children, the sick, elderly and disabled for own household

Volunteer community services and help to other households or people, which
are provided on a ‗voluntary basis‘ either directly or indirectly through volunteer-
based organizations and groups.20

1.8.1 Measuring Unpaid Work

An attempt has to be made to add value to all work that has been left out of labour
statistics. But we lack universally accepted ways to measure and value unpaid work,
without which governments continue to use incomplete information when making fiscal
and policy decisions. Since unpaid work is mostly invisible, it is often excluded from
money transactions. According to calculations by the World Bank, $11 trillion ―earned‖
by women and $5 trillion ―earned‖ by men are missing from the global economy each
year, representing the value of unpaid work as well as the underpayment and
undervaluing of women‘s work.21

19
Measuring and valuing unpaid work in national statistics was one of the main issues at
the fourth world conference on women at Beijing in 1995. It became clear improving data
on the full contribution of women and men to the economy required new accounting and
the implementation of time- use data—that is measuring work by time allocation. Time-
use data provide detailed information on how individuals spend their time, on a daily or
weekly basis. They reveal the details of an individual‘s life with a combination of
specificity and comprehensiveness not achieved in any other type of social survey.
Hirway22 cited the key contributions of time-use data in fostering a better understanding
of the economy and society. Time-use statistics can be useful because they move away
from the vexed questions of economic contribution and occupational categories, and look
at what people actually do: they measure time spent on all activities, productive and
reproductive, and the classifications used are not based on occupational groupings.

A major breakthrough occurred when Canada‘s 1996 Census became the first to collect
data on unpaid work. It divided unpaid work into three categories: housework, care of
children, and care and assistance to seniors but left out volunteer work with community
or charity organizations. However, it was an important first step in measuring and
recognizing women's unpaid work. One of the interesting findings of this census was that
unpaid work is perhaps the biggest contribution that women make to the economy as
most of it is performed by women.

A significant number of countries have chosen to adopt time-use surveys to measure

unpaid work. Japan, Australia, Mali, Morocco, South Africa, Indonesia, India,
Philippines, Palestine, Cuba, Ecuador, and many European countries have designed or
undertaken surveys. while many other countries have expressed interest.

Efforts are now being made to improve the methodology: it has been recognized that it
lacks precision in breaking down different activities, and that underestimation persists
both of time spent and of the range of tasks undertaken.

20
1.8.2 Gender segregation of Labour in unpaid work

Gender division of labour is as evident within the household as it is within paid

employment. It is true that not all women undertake paid work, but few can escape
household labour. Irrespective of the biological or the patriarchal explanation for the
gendered distribution of unpaid labour, the bulk of unpaid work is undertaken by women.
(See table 3) and therefore has affected the well being of women more than men.

Unpaid work, such as domestic work or work based in homes, entails no protective
legislation, no social security, and is assigned low social status. This lack of income
seriously affects women‘s ability to improve their lives.

The lack of value assigned to unpaid work has serious implications both for policy and
for quality of life, affecting the persistent gender wage gap, high poverty rates among
single mothers and their children, the decreasing time parents spend with their own
children, the decline in home-cooking and its health consequences, and the growing time
stress that comes from the struggle to juggle job and household responsibilities.

Table 3 More women workers than men workers are unpaid: percentage of labour
force who are contributing family worker (a), 1990/ 1997

Africa Women Men

Northern Africa 25 7
Southern Africa 27 14
Rest of sub- Saharan Africa 35 18
(b)
Latin America
and the Caribbean
Caribbean 2 2
Central America 7 6
South America 7 3

21
Asia
Eastern Asia 8 1
South-eastern Asia 25 9
Southern Asia 40 11
Western Asia (b) 34 7
Developed regions
Eastern Europe 6 4
Western Europe 4 1
Other developed regions 3 1

Source: Prepared by the Statistics Division of the United Nations Secretariat from
ILO, Key Indicators of the Labour Market (Geneva, 1999 table 3.)

a) Sometimes referred to as ―unpaid family workers‖.

b) Sparse data for this sub region: average should be interpreted with caution.

Check Your Progress Exercise 3

Note: i. Use this space given below to answer the question.
ii. Compare your answer with the one given at the end of this unit
1. What is Unpaid labour?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
2. How can we measure unpaid work?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

22
 _____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
3. Discuss gender segregation in unpaid work.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

1.9. SUMMING UP

Society‘s perception of gender roles can influence the actual disparities in paid and
unpaid work like the sharing or balancing of time allocation and rewards of labour
between women and men. These perceptions impact the lives of men and women.
________________________________________________________________________
1.10 GLOSSARY

Work Force Participation Rate: It is the proportion of ‗working‘ population to total population

Labour Force: It excludes children below the age of 15 and old people above the age of 60

Worker: It is one gainfully employed or one working for a livelihood- excluding unpaid family
workers

______________________________________________________________________________
1.11 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Check Your Progress Exercise 1

1. Examining work through a gendered lens becomes important with the advent of a
new world of work that is trans-bordered and has seen a change in the
composition of the labour force. Perhaps it could be said that the most significant
change in the relationship of gender and work is numerical—the enormous shift in
the gender composition of the labour force. Women comprise an increasing share
of the labour force in almost all regions of the world. During the last few decades
the proportion of economically active women has also increased in unparalleled

23
 numbers with in the global workforce, while men‘s participation rate has been
decreasing slightly.
It can be observed that women‘s participation in the labour force has been steadily
increasing from 57.4% in 1980 to 60.7% in 2000 while there has been a marginal
decrease in men‘s participation rates during the same years. In what manner this decrease
in participation has affected men‘s life is an important research area that requires
attention as this trend is projected in 2010 as well.
Women have entered every area of the work force, and in unprecedented numbers at
every level through all the major professions. The impact has been enormous and has
altered women‘s labour market status in recent years. According to World Bank
estimates, from 1960 to 1997, women have increased their numbers in the global labour
force by 126%. 1
The United Nations statistics surveys indicate that wage and salaried work is the
predominant form of employment for both women and men in most regions except in
sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia.2 India is one such country where women‘s
participation in the workforce continues to remain quite low, both in absolute and relative
terms. As per the recent estimates, 28.7 percent of women as against 54.7 percent of men
participated in workforce in 2004-05.
Today, women make up about 42% of the estimated global working population, making
them indispensable as contributors to national and global economies. However, they are
disproportionately engaged in non-standard forms of work, such as temporary and casual
employment, part-time jobs, home-based work, self employment and working in micro-
enterprises. The main factors leading to the rise in women‘s participation in the labour
force have been: the availability of a wider choice for women; an increased pressure on
them to contribute to the family income, and often survival; the need of economies for a
type of labour that women can provide. However, there are many differences between the
industrialized and industrializing regions, especially in the reasons why women work,
and the reward they gain from it.

In most industrialized countries, opportunities for women in general were restricted until
the Second World War and the two decades of rapid economic growth that followed. The

24
expansion both in services and in part-time employment matched women‘s needs and
experience, thereby encouraging their participation. The pattern of working life has seen a
tremendous change: before the 1950s, most women workers were young and unmarried, or were
much older with grown up children. In later years, economic activity became more continuous—
that is, with fewer, and shorter, breaks for raising a family—and it is no longer unusual (or
illegal) for married women to be employed.4

In developing countries, industrialization tends to coexist with agriculture, and family

businesses. With the exception of some rapidly industrializing Asian countries, the
change has been in the nature of women‘s work, rather than in the number of women
working. There has been a significant movement of women from subsistence farming or
other unpaid activity to labour in both the formal and informal sectors. For most women
in developing countries, a working life has always been longer, and more continuous.
Women, especially in rural areas, continuously work until the end of their lives, hardly
taking a break from their work routine even to have a baby.
At the same time, pressure has increased on women everywhere to make up or provide
the family wage. Women have been at the receiving end of the consequences of debt,
inflation, economic stagnation and unemployment. Across the globe, as prices rise and
incomes fall, women increase their working hours and diversify their activities to ensure
the family‘s survival. There has been an undeniable ‗feminization of poverty‘; more and
more women are poor, and more of the poor are women. It is estimated that women make
up at least 60 per cent of the world's working poor and as long as there are inequalities in
labour markets, women will find it harder than men to escape poverty.

2. Gender segregation is the process in which women and men end up in different
types of occupation, so that two different types of labour markets may be said to
exist, female and male. This segregation has evolved from the concept of Gender
marking which takes place by a process in which the qualifications and
characteristics of an occupation become associated with gender. This gives us an
idea of which gender a person should have for a particular job. Gender marking
becomes apparent when occupations become female or male. In theory, gender

25
 segregation may be seen as a result of gender marking of qualifications,
characteristics, occupations and work functions.
3. This segregation has evolved from the concept of Gender marking which takes
place by a process in which the qualifications and characteristics of an occupation
become associated with gender. This gives us an idea of which gender a person
should have for a particular job. Gender marking becomes apparent when
occupations become female or male. In theory, gender segregation may be seen as
a result of gender marking of qualifications, characteristics, occupations and work
functions. Gender segregation is highly complex and is reflected at all levels—
horizontal, vertical and internal. Internal gender segregation is when women and
men are employed in the same occupation (and in some cases by the same
employers) but carry out different work functions. This means that even an
apparently gender-integrated occupation may actually be highly gender-
segregated in practice.6
Horizontal Segregation: Horizontal segregation is when women work in certain
occupations and industries and men in others. For example, a large number of women
work in services, especially the personal and caring services, while women‘s
participation in the industrial sector is generally much lower than men‘s, and
concentrated in a relatively narrow range of labour- intensive light industries. This
matches with the gender roles assigned to men and women by society.
Vertical Segregation: Within the same occupation, men tend to occupy the higher
managerial positions and women comparatively lower positions; this hierarchical
division is referred to as vertical segregation. Even where an occupation is to some
extent mixed, women are usually in the less responsible, less secure and less well-
paid jobs. On the other hand, even in occupation numerically dominated by women,
men are still often found in the management positions; for example, the principal of a
primary school.

Check Your Progress Exercise 2

1. Wage Gap, Double burden, Glass Ceiling and Sexual Harassment

26
 2. One of the direct consequences of gender segregation in paid work is wage
differentials. Gender based difference in pay is a definitive sign of inequality at
the workplace. In most countries, equal pay legislation exists; however, the
gender segregation of work makes allows the easy application of different
remuneration rates to ‗men‘s work‘ and ‗women‘s work‘. Women tend to be in
jobs that are poorly paid and lack a career structure; even in mixed workforce
jobs, women are more likely to be at the levels of lower responsibility. Further,
there are a high percentage of women who work on a part-time or temporary
basis. Some other factors that contribute to women‘s lower wages include the
constraints on women that do not allow them to do overtime, night shifts etc., the
interruption due to pregnancy that affects accumulation of seniority etc. Trade
Unions have usually failed to take up these concerns because they have been
male-dominated, and these issues have not yet entered the mainstream of their
agenda.
3. The entry of women onto the labour market has not meant any lessening of
domestic chores. Most women are still solely or mostly in charge of housework
and child care. In order to fulfil all their responsibilities at the workplace and at
home, women end up working longer hours. This phenomenon is called ‗double
shift‘ or ‗double burden‘. Due to this women are underrepresented.
Check Your Progress Exercise 3

1. Unpaid work, such as domestic work or work based in homes, entails no

protective legislation, no social security, and is assigned low social status. This
lack of income seriously affects women‘s ability to improve their lives.
2. A major breakthrough occurred when Canada‘s 1996 Census became the first to
collect data on unpaid work. It divided unpaid work into three categories:
housework, care of children, and care and assistance to seniors but left out
volunteer work with community or charity organizations. However, it was an
important first step in measuring and recognizing women's unpaid work. One of
the interesting findings of this census was that unpaid work is perhaps the biggest
contribution that women make to the economy as most of it is performed by

27
 women. A significant number of countries have chosen to adopt time-use surveys
to measure unpaid work. Japan, Australia, Mali, Morocco, South Africa,
Indonesia, India, Philippines, Palestine, Cuba, Ecuador, and many European
countries have designed or undertaken surveys. while many other countries have
expressed interest. Efforts are now being made to improve the methodology: it
has been recognized that it lacks precision in breaking down different activities,
and that underestimation persists both of time spent and of the range of tasks
undertaken.
3. Gender division of labour is as evident within the household as it is within paid
employment. It is true that not all women undertake paid work, but few can
escape household labour. Irrespective of the biological or the patriarchal
explanation for the gendered distribution of unpaid labour, the bulk of unpaid
work is undertaken by women. (See table 3) and therefore has affected the well
being of women more than men.

1.10. REFERENCES

1. The World‘s Women (2000), Trends and statistics, social statistics and indicators.
Series K. No. 16. New York: United Nations.
2. Ibid
3. Jose S (2007), Women, paid work and empowerment in India: a review of evidence
and issues. New Delhi: Centre for Women‘s Development Studies.
4. Bullock Susan (1994), Women and work. London & New Jersey: Zen Books.
5. Cleveland Jeanette N, Stockdale Margaret, and Murphy Kevin R (2000), Women and
men in organization: sex and gender issues at work. Mahwah, New Jersey
London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
6. Westberg H (1998), Different worlds, in women‘s health at work. Sweden: National
Institute for Working Life.
7. Bullock Susan (1994), Women and work. London & New Jersey: Zen Books.
8. Ibid

28
9. Cleveland Jeanette N, Stockdale Margaret, and Murphy Kevin R (2000), Women and
men in organization: sex and gender issues at work. Mahwah, New Jersey
London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
10. Kimmel Michael S (2008), The gendered society 3rd edition. New York: Oxford
University Press.
11. Ibid
12. Ibid
13. Cleveland Jeanette N, Stockdale Margaret, and Murphy Kevin R (2000), Women and
men in organization: sex and gender issues at work. Mahwah, New Jersey
London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
14. Bullock Susan (1994), Women and work. London & New Jersey: Zen Books.
15. Ibid
16. Ibid
17. Ibid
18. Ibid
19. Cleveland Jeanette N, Stockdale Margaret, and Murphy Kevin R (2000), Women and
men in organization: sex and gender issues at work. Mahwah, New Jersey
London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
20. Integrating Unpaid Work into National Policies, (2003), United Nations.
21. World Bank (1995), World Development Report. Appendix 3. New York.
22. Hirway (2000), Time-use studies: conceptual and methodological issues with
reference to the Indian time-use survey.‖ Proceedings of the International Seminar
on Time-Use Studies, 7-10 December 1999, Ahmedabad. New Delhi: Ministry of
Statistics and Programme Implementation.

Suggested Readings
1. Agarwal B (1994), A field of one‘s own: gender and land rights in South Asia.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 572.
2. Kabeer Naila (2001), Resources, agency, achievements: reflections on the
measurement of women‘s empowerment. In Sevefjord, Birjitta and Berit Olsson

29
 (eds.) Discussing women‘s empowerment: theory and practice, SIDA Studies No.
3.
3. Walters V [et.al…] (1995), Paid and unpaid work roles of male and female nurses. In
Invisible: Issues in women‘s occupational health and safety/ Invisible: La santé
des travailleuses/ edited by Messing K, Neis B & Dumais L. Charlottetown, PEI:
Gynergy Books.
4. Kilborn Asa, Karen Messing and Carina Bildt Thorbjorsson (eds.) (1998), Women‘s
health at work. Sweden: National Institute for Working Life.
5. Men and masculinity, gender and development (Oxfam) Vo.5 (2) June 1997.
6. Committee for Asian women, many paths, one goal: organising women workers in
Asia (CAW, Hong Kong, 1991)
7. Kishwar Madhu and Ruth Vanita (eds.) (1984), In search of answers: Indian women‘s
voices from Manushi. London: Zed Books.
8. Raghavan Chakravarti (1992), Recolonization: GATT, the Uruguay Round and the
Third World. Malaysia: Third World Network, Penang.
9. Sen Gita and Caren Grown for DAWN (1988), Development, crises and alternative
visions: third world women‘s perspectives. London: Earthscan
10. United Nations Development Programme (1989), Women in development: project
achievement reports. New York: UNDP.
________________________________________________________________________
1.11 QUESTIONS FOR REFELCTION AND PRACTICE

1. Discuss the valuation women‘s work.

30