The need for Gender Budgeting: Women in unpaid work
The lack of recognition of a significant part of women’s work has serious economic and social implications. The NSSO does not acknowledge the domestic work performed by women as economic activity since it encompasses the time spent working for one’s ‘own’ household or rearing one’s ‘own’ child. However, once these activities are outsourced, they become marketable. This continuum in women’s unpaid and paid work leaves them with lower bargaining power and results in lower wages for women in care economies; not because they are willing to work for lower wages but because much of their work is available for free. In India, the government uses this segmented population by engaging them in care work as ASHA and Anganwadi workers. An increased fund allocation is crucial for the care sector, in the form of higher wages and decent working conditions for the women engaged in care activities.
The COVID-19 pandemic gave visibility to the ASHA and Anganwadi workers as the connecting link between the state and localised community efforts to contain the virus. Due to their robust grassroots links, the service provided by these frontline workers became invaluable. However, in August 2020, the nation saw widespread protests by ASHA workers, demanding higher wages and health insurance against the coronavirus pandemic, since they work as informal labourers in the care sector and do not qualify for the status of formal workers, thus depriving them of entitlements such as minimum wages, leave and favourable working conditions. Instances such as this bring to focus the need for a larger perspective on gender budgeting as a class-based policy.
The role of the state in recent times can be viewed as a paradigm shift from welfarism to new welfarism. New welfarism involves a subsidy on the provision of those goods which are usually provided by the private sector, as opposed to the direct provisioning of public goods. This marks a significant departure from the original redistributive function of the state. This is also in line with the dominance of globalized finance and a receding role of the state that is inducing a contractionary spell in public sector social spending. The brunt of reduced social sector spending is not lost on women workers who juggle with the ‘double burden’ of both paid and unpaid work. While the Time Use Survey statistics indicate that women in India spend an additional 5 hours on unpaid work daily, care work performed by women continues to be underpaid and devalued.
The state recognises ASHA and Anganwadi workers as ‘honorary workers’ and pays them a salary way below the minimum wages (Rs. 2,000–4,500 per month as opposed to Rs. 9,500 determined by a government-appointed expert committee in 2019). This is nothing but the Central government’s contribution to their wages which is further linked to performance-based incentives over and above this wage. Government’s allocation for Anganwadi services for the year 2020–21 reported only a 3.5% increase in Budgeted Estimates over the previous period. This increase was not significant when adjusted for inflation figures. Moreover, fund allocation for Anganwadi services for the period 2018–19 was 23% less than what it demanded.
The change in Centre’s contribution to the wages of Anganwadi workers poses yet another difficulty for the fund-stressed state governments. In 2017, the contribution of the Centre for select salaried staff reduced from 60:40 to 25:75. State finances have been in shambles due to the impending GST compensation and the increasing burden of expenditure caused by the pandemic. The obsession with the 3% fiscal deficit target presents a constrained fiscal space for the Central government, adhering to the rules of globalized finance. In a globalized economy, high social sector expenditure raises concerns on the ‘alarming’ level of ‘unproductive’ expenditure, causing capital flight. This traces the trajectory of the Central government from the role of welfarism to new welfarism. The August 2020 protests by these frontline workers also demanded withdrawal of government proposals for privatisation of healthcare, nutrition and education. Inadequate funding and failure to fill vacancies across these services demonstrate neglect and a potential withdrawal of the state which might not only lead to a deterioration of the working conditions for the female workforce, but also neglect of public services such as health facilities..
Increasing opportunities for this all-women workforce by filling vacancies, ensuring decent working conditions and paying minimum wages will not only improve the quality of the work that they do, but also increase the rural purchasing power. According to the latest consumption data, there has been a significant decline in rural spending. In an economy with almost stagnant rural wages, putting money into the hands of people will help in achieving our nutritional and educational goals. Expanding employment opportunities for rural women will help in recognising them as part of state machinery and negotiating their mobility within larger patriarchal norms. Recognition of care work by the state can also help in unsettling the unequal and gendered division of unpaid care work and unrecognised domestic chores.
The falling women labour force participation rate over the years is not a reflection of women exiting labour force but a shift from paid to unpaid work. Women engaged in unpaid work subsidise the formal economy which can lead to misleading estimates of the true nature of women labour force participation and national accounting estimates. The focus of the budget this year should be on improving the quality, recognition and remuneration of the ASHA and Anganwadi workers. The heavy bias towards paid work along with the increasing spate of privatisation pose threats for disproportionate undervaluation of the female labour force, coupled with dehumanising working conditions. This also begs for the uptake of gender budgeting exercise on an earnest basis as it exposes gendered inequalities and sets the stage for an improvement in the status of women through the advancement of resources and civic rights to facilitate better access to publicly funded services.
(Nishat Anjum is an MA 2nd year student at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU and can be reached at nishat17_ssa@jnu.ac.in)
