Women still earn less, but wage gap has narrowed: ILO Report

Average wages in India increased more rapidly for women than for men between 1993-94 and 2011-12, thereby closing the gender gap, though women continued to be paid less for the same work, according to a report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
The ILO’s India Wage Report also revealed that wages in the unorganised sector grew faster than for those in organised employment over this period.It added that while employment in the organised sector has grown, many of these jobs are not of a permanent nature.
The participation of women in regular/salaried employment has increased at a higher annual rate
(4.7%) than for men (2.9%) from 1993-94 to 2011-12. The gender wage gap has narrowed not only at the average level but also across states, industries and occupations, as well as across the different quantiles of the wage distribution. However, the gap remains very high by international standards, despite declining from 48% in 1993-94 to 34% in 2011-12. This gap can be observed among all types of workers — regular and casual, urban and rural. As a result, of all worker groups, the average daily wages of casual rural female workers is the lowest (Rs 104 per day).
“Female workers are paid a lower wage rate than their male counterparts in each employment category (casual and regular/salaried) and location (urban and rural), although the differences are smaller – on average – in urban than in rural areas,” the report states. Women are over-represented in low-skilled occupations and this occupational segregation seems to have intensified during the period 1983 to 2011-12, the report observed.

It pointed out that the Indian labour market remains characterised by high levels of segmentation and informality. Of the total employed in 2011–12, more than half
(51.4% or 206 million people) were self-employed, and of the 195 million wage earners, 62% (121 million) were employed as casual workers.
Though regular/salaried employment has increased over time, much of the increase involves jobs on short-term or fixed-term contracts. There has been a sharp and sustained rise in the share of contractual workers in the organised manufacturing sector, from 14% in 1990-91 to 35% in 2011-12, the report noted.
“From 2004-05 to 2011-12, regular/salaried employment without social security and other non-wage benefits grew in this sector at an astonishing 9.2%, higher than regular formal employment that increased at 3.2% for the same period. Hence, there is a fragmentation within the organised economy, where a growing proportion of regular/salaried workers seem to be informal, without access to social security. The organised sector also continues to rely on the use of casual and contract labourers in high proportions, in some sectors,” the report stated.
The report pointed out that while casual wages have increased faster than those for regular workers over the past decade, there remains a large gap between the wages of casual and regular workers. In 2011-12, the average wage paid for casual work was still only 36% of the compensation received by regular/salaried workers.
Interestingly, over the period as a whole, agriculture was the sector with the highest wage increases. Much of this happened in the second half of the period, which suggests that MNREGA may have had an impact.