More Women Prefer Self Employment Over Regular And Salaried Jobs Post-Pandemic

Women's employment has seen a major turnover throughout the Covid pandemic years. Women's employment and labour force participation rates are rising, but their proportion in regular, paying occupations is falling. Today, more women are self-employed. And this is something that is happening in foreign countries as well.

In 2021, there were 88 million self-employed women in India. The indicator rose by 9.4% in India on an annual basis in 2021. There were 14.5% more women who were self-employed between 2010 and 2021. The number of women who worked for themselves was the greatest in the nation in 2021 and lowest in 2018.

Self-employed persons are the ones who work in their own businesses, farms, or professional practices. The female labour force participation increased in the year 2018, the rural percentage was 24.6 and the urban percentage was 20.4. And in the year 2022, the rural percentage was 32.8 and urban percentage was 23.8%.

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In 2018, the percentage of regular wage/salaried women was 21% and self-employed was 51.9%. And in 2022, the percentage of regular wage/salaried women was 16.5% and the self-employed percentage was 62.1%. (Shoot For The Stars: Top Women Leaders' Advice To Junior Female Employees)

Despite the fact that the Economic Survey 2022–23 reports that the female labour force participation rate climbed from 18.6% in 2018–19 to 25.1% in 2020–21, experts and economic gurus believe that women are still underemployed or out of work because inadequate funding is being allocated to the unorganised, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), and rural development sectors, as well as safety concerns and outdated social norms.

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The India Discrimination Report 2022 by Oxfam emphasises the difference in gender pay. According to the survey, there is discrimination against women nationwide in both hiring and salary. In 2020, men who worked informal jobs made an average monthly wage of Rs.9,017, which is 58 per cent more than the Rs.5,709 received by their female counterparts. Corresponding to this, men earned an average salary of Rs.19,779 compared to Rs. 15,578 for women in the area of regular jobs, a 27 per cent disparity. The gap was greatest among urban independent contractors, where men made an average monthly salary of Rs. 15,996 compared to Rs. 6,626 for women, a difference of 14%.

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