When it comes to gender parity, India’s story seems quite curious. The Gender Parity Index (GPI) reached one in the country at primary education level (Class I – V) in 2009-10 and has been greater than one (in favour of females) for all levels of education since 2018-19. The GPI has also been consistent across states over the last five years.
According to the Global Gender Gap 2024 Report (GGGR), India has a Gender Gap Index score of 0.997 in enrollment in primary education, 1.0 in secondary education and 0.982 in higher education. In terms of co-equality, however, there is a huge gap between education and the labour market. In fact, the GGGR places India at the fifth-lowest rank in economic participation by gender gap, which partly explains the country’s overall rank of 129 out of 146 countries.
So why is it that gender parity in education has not been able to wipe out gender-based wage gaps or increase labour force participation rate for women? What are the obstacles for a smooth transition from higher female literacy to higher employment for women?
We can start where the trade-off is closest – higher education. The Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in undergraduate disciplines is traditionally skewed by gendered self-selection (for example, engineering courses enroll 42% more men while education courses have 25% more women). But the average gender gap across enrollment in all major disciplines is less than 5% (2021-22). The numbers tell a similar story when grouped by degree (B.Tech to B.A., diploma to PhD) or pass rates. The answer is, therefore. not in higher education alone.
Gender parity is being achieved from the primary level, but enrollment percentages are falling sharply from 103 percent at the primary level to 54% at the higher secondary level and 28% at the higher education level (2021-22). Between ages 14-15 and 16-17, it falls from 73 to 42%, signaling the inability or unwillingness of these students to undertake the transition from secondary to higher secondary level. It is interesting to note there are negligible differences between male and female enrollment and graduation rates in this respect (the differences are noticeable between urban and rural areas).
This declining enrollment as one goes to higher levels of education or what may be called disinterest in undertaking additional years of education can be traced to a host of factors. Students place high expectations on institutions to provide them with tailor-made job opportunities. Any lack thereof erodes faith in the value of traditional arts and science programmes. In addition, the constant transformation of the economy requires a supply of new skills that schools and colleges are slow to implement.
We can consider returns to education as a probability distribution where if one gets a job post-college, it ensures a higher long-run return. But if they do not find employment or get a low-paying job that did not require the degree, the loss is immediate and greater, given the time and money already devoted to those additional years. The trade-off then between starting work at 16 or at 20 with a college degree becomes too small and unpredictable to invest in when low-income families are also often trapped in meeting short-term financial goals. The final decision might end up being a function of the student’s willingness and ability to remain a student, family support and understanding, financial solubility and social expectations.
So, gender parity in education does not mean much if more than 50% of students drop out along the way, or get absorbed unskilled and untrained into informal labour markets. One might take comfort in the gender parity at all levels of education, but this misses a large fraction of students (boys and girls in equal number) becoming unprepared job seekers, often permanently. This is where gender disparities rear their ugly heads again. Women and men, without completing a full quota of their school years, let alone a degree for formal employment, self-select into gender-specific roles, which means more women get reported in unpaid and self-employed categories. And this number is higher in the rural areas. These disparities are more unforgiving in the lower rungs of non-contractual employment in India where the rules and the workplace are still made by men for men. Statistically, the Indian labour market will be easier for the male school dropout to find a job (or have a choice among more jobs) compared to the same for a female.
Similar to how slowly the education system innovates, the labour market also stagnates in its ability to create new labour-intensive jobs for women. Stories of women fitting into male-dominated roles (often successfully) are the exception, not the norm, and the mere absence of female washrooms at a work place is sometimes enough to discourage an entire generation from pursuing a noted occupation.
Despite all this, female labour participation rate has increased by nearly 14 percentage points over the last six years. There is a new wave of female workers entering the labour force, though inadequately prepared to navigate an unflinching patriarchal market. These women will continue to face a disproportionately higher range of challenges related to working conditions, discrimination and balancing family responsibilities.
Our country is in the midst of a long transition period where women are spending more years on education compared to their parents, exercising their choice in marriage and often successfully delaying, having fewer children, and venturing into traditional male-dominated occupations, all while facing a constant battle with less-than-welcoming orthodox fraternities. It will take time for these changes to trickle down across different income and societal classes. As always, a sound education holds the key.
This article is authored by Jayanta Talukder, associate fellow at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi.