Women in India are engaged more in the unorganized than the organized sector and have been worse affected in the wake of the pandemic, pushed out also partly due to the general preference for male workers. The ‘occupational segregation’ disproportionately forces women to be a part of the informal sector, typically characterized by unskilled labour, low wages, lack of social protection, inherent exploitative client-patron relationship and dis-entitled from the bindings of labour laws. Besides, there is the political economy of the household care-work that is unpaid, invisible and home-bound.Margaret Mead had explained how male achievement is magnified in traditional societies so much that the same occupation by women renders women’s work as less important. The basis of such presumption lay in treating domestic work as a natural function of women. But political parties are diffident to address the exclusion of women from employment, the relationship between women’s participation in the labour market and development outcomes being complex.Schemes guaranteeing some amount of money to women by way of cash transfer is no substitute for gainful employment. Access to such cash does not mean that women will have effective control over it. It is a state-controlled dependency model that does not envision a substantive plan for inclusion of women into the workforce but endorses minimal, short-term benevolence.A paltry allowance will not pay the fees for higher education of girls or enable women to launch a start-up enterprise. Indeed, studies suggest that in all probability, such beneficiaries will spend the amount in fulfilling the welfare needs of the family than for her own well-being. How can the state contribute to enhancing the capability of women as an economic player? Promoting conditions conducive for formalization of women in the work force and gender equality at the workplace are the ways forward.
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