The Motherhood Penalty and Female Employment in Urban India
Since the 1990s, India has seen robust economic growth, rising wages, steady fertility decline, increased urbanization, and expanded educational attainment for males and females. But unlike other countries that have undergone similar transitions, u...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/417411489495483028/The-motherhood-penalty-and-female-employment-in-urban-India http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26347 |
| Summary: | Since the 1990s, India has seen robust
economic growth, rising wages, steady fertility decline,
increased urbanization, and expanded educational attainment
for males and females. But unlike other countries that have
undergone similar transitions, urban women's employment
has refused to budge, never crossing the 25 percent mark.
This paper fills a critical gap in policy research on
women's employment in India. The discussion is situated
in the normative construction of motherhood and the gendered
nature of caregiving in India. The analysis uses pooled data
from six rounds of the National Sample Surveys to examine
the effects of having a young child on mothers'
employment in urban India over 1983-2011. The analysis also
looks at household structure, and analyzes the effects of
other household members on women's labor supply. The
results show that although the onus of childbearing may have
reduced, that of caregiving has increased. Having a young
child in the home depresses mothers' employment, an
inverse relationship that has intensified over time.
Further, living in a household with older children and women
over the age of 50 is positively associated with
women's employment. These results show that the care of
young children is an increasingly important issue in
women's employment decisions, in a context where formal
childcare is practically nonexistent. These results have
significant implications for policy to raise women’s labor
force participation in India. |
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