The Nobel laureate in Economics for 2023 Dr Claudia Goldin has said that ‘we’re never going to have gender equality until we have couple equity’. She was awarded the prize for advancing ‘our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes’.  The importance of her work was recognized as she has overturned assumptions about both historical gender relations and what is required to achieve greater equality in the present day. 

The traditional thought had been that economic growth led to a more level playing field between men and women in the employment market. Her research showed that actually the Industrial revolution drove married women out of the labour market as production moved from home to factory. It was only when the service sector blossomed in the 20^th century that the gender gap narrowed. The participation of women in the workforce jumped again when the contraceptive pill was approved in 1960. As per her historical research between 1967 and 1979 the share of 20 year old women who expected to be employed grew from 35% to 80%.

Her work has brought the limelight on the role expectations play in the labour markets. Expectations of both the women and employers play a role.  Ideas such as how long a worker will stay in the workplace determine both employment prospects and wage. Parenthood also plays a role in widening gender gaps. If both partners are in high paying jobs that need long hours, after a child is born, normally the women moves to a lower paying job. She has also highlighted what she called ‘greedy jobs’ like law, finance and consulting that offer better returns for long and uncertain hours. These also keep the gender participation and pay gap wide.

In India too, the Periodic Labour Force Surveys (PLFS) have been monitoring gender earning gaps from April June 2019 to 2023. The main findings have shown that men earn more than women in all forms of work, with the greatest gap being among the self-employed. In 2023, self employed men earned 2.8 times more than women. In contrast the gap fell from 34% to 24% in case of regular wage workers. The levels of labour force participation rate for women globally remain low. In India, between 1990 and 2022 this has decreased from 28% to 24%. The PLFS data shows that marriage significantly impacts women’s labour participation outcomes. Social and cultural forces have shown to impact women’s participation.

The importance of Dr Goldin’s work is that it highlights that solutions for gender inequality would vary depending on time and place.  Jobs that place premium on the hours worked the ‘greedy jobs’ need to be reworked. In this period of high economic growth in our country getting married women into the labour force is imperative, given the large numbers of them in the working age population. The challenge of achieving couple equity is equally important in urban areas. Unless domestic work and child rearing becomes a shared responsibility in reality, the gender gap will persist. Crèches and day care facilities will not by themselves solve the issue at hand. The challenges are traditional, but the solutions are not.

Published in Dainik Bhaskar on 21-11-2023