Articles by Neetha N

The recent move of the government to extend the Employees’ State Insurance Scheme for domestic workers clearly shows the callousness of the initiative and the non-committal approach of the state to the concerns of domestic workers. For the first time, a discriminatory approach within the ESI scheme to a specific category of workers is noticeable.

Apart from labour market issues that govern legislative interventions, a critical factor in understanding the responses of the state to the issues domestic workers face is the social understanding of household work. Minimum wages for domestic workers in the few states where it is mandated are among the lowest in the informal sector, reflecting the undervaluation of housework even when it enters the market. Better statutory minimum wages for domestic workers would not only help protect their rights, but could also shake the social and political foundations of household work, leading to a new valuation of it.

The data from the National Sample Survey Office's 66th round survey highlight a steep fall in the female work participation rate between 2004-05 and 2009-10. Examining some of the explicit and not-so-explicit trends in women's work participation in India from 1993-94 to 2009-10, this paper argues that indications are that there is a crisis in women's employment under liberalisation-led growth. It shows how specific attention given to unpaid work in nss data can overturn standard assumptions on women's employment and that this is vitally important to discussions on employment growth in India.

The first "Annual Report to the People on Employment" prepared by the Ministry of Labour and Employment is a disappointment for it does not add to what we know and it avoids asking difficult questions.

While the NCEUS report on social security for unorganised workers acknowledges the existence of unpaid workers, the definition of the "informal worker" to determine social security coverage excludes them from its ambit. This elimination of unpaid workers from social security coverage has serious gender implications for women who overwhelmingly make up the numbers constituting unpaid family labour.