The difference in income in India, the gender pay gap – Ekta Shakti Foundation
It feels good to see Indian women leaving their homes and heading to their workplaces. That they are contributing to the community and their families fills one with pride. Despite this achievement, the equality gap in the pay scale seems worrisome. Indian women earn 20% less than Indian men, according to 2017 statistics. When it comes to wages in India, why does gender become an important parameter in determining wages? The latest Monster Salary Index shows that while men earned Rs 231 per hour, women were only paid Rs 184. In recent years, the gap appears to have narrowed, but at a very slow pace.
In March 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 26-week maternity leave, instead of the previous 12 weeks, for working women. The move was to ensure proper care of future citizens of India. Although this measure was intended to give working women enough time to recover before resuming their jobs, it had unintended consequences. Small and medium-sized industries opted to hire more men than women. Perhaps because they couldn’t afford to offer 6 months of paid vacation to their employees.
Coming back to PM Modi’s powerful announcement, some working women decide to go back to the field, but they have to fight hard to get another job due to the break in service time and the experience that occurred. They may succeed in securing jobs again. However, after the long gap, these employees have no choice but to start from scratch.
Article 14 of the Indian Constitution deals with the issues of gender equality. It prohibits discrimination on any grounds, be it gender, class, religion, race or caste, without a doubt, it gives impetus to the fundamental rights of all Indian citizens. The law of the land establishes that these can be violated under any condition. Despite the fact that the Indian Constitution was formed in 1949, the glaring gender pay gap, even in modern years, shows that the law has been poorly understood.
Article 14 guarantees equality – under the protection of the law. But the same protection of the laws may not be afforded to all women, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Honor killings in India have been prevalent on a large scale in India before, and in many places still are. These were more common among the uneducated sect of society. Although the cases may have reduced, they are prevalent even today. And these are not simply attacks on women in need. More than that, these attacks are assaults on the autonomy of each woman and girl. Unfortunately, India is one of the countries that has a large number of female feticide cases.
That the cultural preference for the male child still exists today is more puzzling. Practices like these have been damaging the equal protection of the laws for many Indian women, while also spreading the wrong messages for young women. By their own choice, they decide not to pursue education or jobs when marriage is the only stage of their lives. Is it then wrong to say that getting married in India is the end of a woman’s career? One does not realize that these women who are murdered every year or raised with restrictions on personal freedom can do so much for society. Perhaps the belief that educating women and making more of them work can be the greatest achievement of any nation is still far from being instilled in everyone. That is why they also generate hostility towards women and girls, creating more problems for them.
The patriarchal attitude, formed decades ago, still persists, expecting women to take over the burden of the main household and parenthood. The attitude is sustained not only when they are not working but also when they are employed. Thus, in a way, women are victims of wage or labor inequality either inside or outside the home, or in both domains. This doubles the discrimination on both a personal and professional level.
In India’s rural economy, women have always been the looters. The rural economy becomes more fluid with their involvement in agriculture, livestock care, dairying, and forest protection. While men migrate to cities to earn a living, women sincerely nurture families, even when they have few resources to begin with. Since food is the main problem, rural women become vulnerable to malnutrition. That is why they take menial jobs like working in the fields. On rare occasions, they move to the factories only to be discriminated against at a higher level. Getting an education in the hope of better job prospects becomes difficult for them when they already have ongoing problems in the family.
Beyond the realms of imagination, it is devastating when rural women lose their jobs. That’s why some women choose not to take jobs because of childcare, while others leave children as young as 8 at home alone. Do you have better options? Either they can work and put food on the table or they can not work and let there be no food. They become more distressed when job providers are also reluctant to accommodate their family’s needs, such as medical facilities or time to care for someone sick in the family. Women in urban areas deal with problems differently. They have to constantly juggle multiple family obligations and rigid job requirements. The lack of education and training does not favor them.
However, one should not be satisfied that wage corrections are taking place only in the educated segments. It cannot be known for certain that the lives of educated women are better than those of the uneducated. But the realities on the ground determine that the latter surely deserves better pay for both security and economic stability. Low-income women have to meet many obligations to keep their jobs. The Ekta Shakti Foundation understands the struggles of your lives. To make these struggles meaningful, they go one step further by empowering them with vocational skills.
The Ekta Shakti Foundation supports vocational skills that can prepare any woman for a job that earns respect, as well as a satisfied livelihood. Equip them with the skills that will generate enough profit to sustain them. A large number of women lose their jobs even when they don’t want to. It is sad to see them fight for the basic rights to life. They develop a lot of confidence in them to enable them to support financial security for themselves independently. By supporting them in every phase of life, you make them self-sufficient in their own right.