Women's work in the post reform period: an exploration of macro data

The paper analyses women’s employment through a disaggregate analysis of the last three rounds of quinqueinial NSSO Employment and Unemployment surveys, 1993-94, 1999-00 and 2004-05 and explores the emerging patterns in women’s employment which outline some of the new developments or changes that are taking place. The remaining part of the paper is structured under five broad sections. Section II discusses the broad changes in women’s employment through an examination of absolute changes in employment, work participation rates and nature of employment. Sectoral and sub-sectoral trends and patterns across rural and urban areas are outlined in Section III. Section IV provides a disaggregate analysis of female employment in the IT and ITES sector in the backdrop of the euphoria that prevails in the context of the growth of the sector. The issue of women as unpaid care workers is discussed in Section V with a view to situate women in a broader context of their role as both productive and reproductive workers. Finally Section VI sums up the paper.