For a growing number of Indian women, paid work doesn’t come from sitting in corporate or government offices. Instead, it is their presence in the lower layers of the fragmented labour market of the informal segment and lately app-mediated gigs and home-based piecework that gives them access to earned wages. With an increase in the Indian gig economy, the question arises: is it offering Indian women a better opportunity than the classical informal economy?
The Indian socio-economic system is unique and ever evolving. There is an exclusive interaction taking place contemporarily between the increasing FLFPR and the informal economic system across the country. The Indian informal labour market is both segmented and layered. The ILO recognizes informality in the Indian labour markets up to an extent of 92%.
Women in the Indian Informal Economy
Indian labour markets manifest a stark difference in outcomes based on the gender of the labour. Being a historical patriarchal society, women in India lag behind men in the wage economy. Traditional social systems have maintained a strict bifurcated system of keeping women limited to the care economy and men in charge of the wage economy. Over time, women in India have also been progressing in the direction of literacy, education, skills and wage-work seeking. As a result, their outcomes in the direction have been increasing. An increasing number of Indian women have been seeking the wage work over the last few decades.
With a limited formal sector, the informal economy is the only accessible pathway to the wage economy for most of the job-seeking Indian women across the spectrum of available and potential wage work. As entrants, women are mostly able to find work within the lower layers of the informal economy. With limited education, skills and exposure, women possess little to no bargaining power. They are further constrained by the availability of cheap labour substitutes, further diminishing their chances to bargain for better wages, working conditions and labour outcomes.
With a limited formal sector, the informal economy is the only accessible pathway to the wage economy for most of the job-seeking Indian women across the spectrum of available and potential wage work.
Prof. Sonalde Desai et al. have been working on identifying the unique FLFPR trends in India. It has been established that the educated cohort of middle-class Indian women doesn’t prefer to do waged work. With a stable minimum family income, middle-class women do not want to be engaged in the low-labour-outcomes informal sector. This cohort is one of the largest in the country. On the other hand, women from the lowest and highest income strata have increasingly been seeking waged work. The former group is compelled by the household needs and income constraints. The latter group (which is the smallest) seeks work in self-actualization. PLFS 2011-12 recorded Indian FLFPR as 31.2%, declining to 23.3% during 2017-18. Another wave of increase was registered during 2021-22 at 29.4%, followed by 41.7% during 2022-23.
The New Possibilities of Gig Work in India
In the previous decade, technology took over. An ever-increasing fraction of the Indian population, including women, have access to the digital universe. Simultaneously, literacy, education, and marketable hard and soft skills have increased. The preferences and needs of labour markets have been fast evolving. One such significant change is being realized as the rise of the Indian gig economy.
A gig economy broadly refers to a flexible type of labour market that has lately been fast evolving. The scope of work offered by it often contradicts that of the regular labour market with fixed numbers of working hours, in-person presence and well-defined duties. The gig economy, though not limited to, includes temporary, flexible, part-time, freelancing and home-based work. Given the universalization of smartphones and the internet, gig work is often facilitated by online and digital platforms. It has been evolving at the intersection of formal and informal economic systems. The fundamental idea is that if a person has any marketable skill and markets and self-promotes it in the right way, it can be traded in the open market for a remuneration ranging from a bare minimum to millions of dollars. An average gig worker has more bargaining power than a person working in the classical informal economy. Worker autonomy is on the higher side.
Of all people, young women in India have successfully been able to find remunerative work within the ambit of the gig economy, mostly cashing in on soft skills. Instances of selling handmade jewellery, crocheted clothes and running cloud kitchens have been increasing. Caring and domestic chores also fall within the ambit of this subgroup. Women, who do not wish to enter the exploitative lower layers of the accessible informal economy, use social media and other accessible platforms in using their (soft) skills to find remunerative work. A platform fraction of the gig economy has been gainfully engaging educated and skilled middle-class women well within their homes. It has been resulting in a balance between Indian women’s caring and waged work, enhancing their overall quality of life.
Is the gig economy the informal economy in a garb or actually better?
NITI Aayog, in 2022, published its first report on the theme, titled, ‘India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy’. In 2019-20, 6.8 million were followed by 7.7 million in 2020-21; Indians worked in the gig economy. By 2029-30, 23.5 million Indians are expected to be gainfully engaged across different sectors, skills and occupations via the gig economy mode. Currently an average Indian gig worker is 29 years old and involved in either a low- or a high-skilled job. By 2030, the number of medium-scale skilled workers is expected to take over. Simultaneously, 73% of existing Indian gig workers are men but female participation is fast increasing.
Working in the Indian informal sector for an average woman means working six or seven days a week, for eight to ten hours a day, with physical presence. Dimmest possible wages, no bargains, dingy working conditions, limited access to hygienic sanitation and no childcare facilities are identified as the characteristics.
The gig economy as a pathway to remunerative work for Indian women comes at the right time. Indian society and government agencies both aren’t ready to host the existing number of remunerative-work-seeking Indian women through the traditional labour markets. Work-life balance, flexible working hours, safer working conditions, child care friendly, access to decent and timely wages come assured. Gig work decreases time poverty; an issue severely faced by Indian (working) women, and promises stable physical and mental health outcomes. It boosts their digital and financial inclusion.
Importantly, it gives women workers bargaining power. They are able to set a desirable rate for their work, giving them a sense of control and empowerment as independent decision-makers. Like never before and at a fast pace, gig platforms provide women access to unexplored and diverse sectors and markets. Over the longer run, the gig economy is seen as a parallel platform for promoting low-key diverse female entrepreneurship.
Working in the Indian informal sector for an average woman means working six or seven days a week, for eight to ten hours a day, with physical presence. Dimmest possible wages, no bargains, dingy working conditions, limited access to hygienic sanitation and no childcare facilities are identified as the characteristics. Result: stagnant FLFPR across decades. It is the growth of the Indian gig economy that in turn is boosting the FLFPR, which the contemporary Indian developmental process mandatorily needs. Micro-level production, sale and purchase are becoming possible and feasible. Leakages in the local economic systems are prevented and international remunerations are entering the Indian economy.
An average Indian woman, who till very recent times only dreamt of a formal job and faced multiple constraints and limitations in finding a place within the informal sector, is marching towards economic liberation. An increasing number of women, with education and skills of multiple sorts are getting a chance and a choice to make of entering the gig economy. Outcomes for most of them are promising and remunerative, though the challenges of stratification across skills, digital access and understanding the algorithmic control remain.
The Debate on Waged Gendered Realities and the Call for Change
The gig economy has the potential to displace the classical informal economy. The level of female discrimination within the waged informal Indian economy is expected to come down to such an extent that it dissolves as the residue that it was considered to be earlier. However, the gig economy is not and cannot be a perfect substitute for the formal economy in the longer run. Of the multiple fallouts and problems of the gig economy, the short-term nature of work and lack of permanence in work commitment are the major issues. The opportunity is temporary and lacks job security; benefits like pension, insurance, paid and maternity leave etc. are mostly absent. Career ladders don’t exist, progression is limited, and platform-based ratings can become an issue sometimes. Non-platform work at times mimics the classical informal economic system.
Yet, given the contemporary stage of Indian development, coupled with an open demographic window, the gig economy is currently a timely and better substitute for women over the classical informal economy. While it doesn’t resolve the issue of structural gendered opportunity and wage inequalities, it is boosting the FLFPR to begin with. It is also reorganizing and increasing Indian women’s socio-economic empowerment outcomes. Till the formal economy expands and the informal economy is washed of layers and segments, gig economy best served Indian job-seeking women by expanding the income opportunities. However, the new vulnerabilities created by it can’t be whitewashed altogether.
The central issue is the economic empowerment of women, which mandates that the debate must move past the numbers. Finding the work is not the only issue. The main issues are fostering job security and income stability. Working women in India direly need maternity protection and childcare access. Non-recognition of their caring and domestic duties remains a persistent issue beyond gig and informality. Broader gender responsive regulations including stronger social security codes, informed gender sensitive policies, gender mainstreaming and female sensitive work policies are needed to prevent the gig work from becoming just another layer of female precarity over a sustainable pathway to feminine economic agency.
