Steep Unemployment And Shortchanged Promises: What You Need To Know About Maharashtra’s Unemployment Crisis For Women
Maharashtra has an unemployment crisis. The overall rate of unemployment is 2.7, slightly higher than it was five years ago. For the state’s young rural women between the ages of 15-29, the rate of unemployment increased from 4.2% to 7.5% in the last year. Though still lower than the national average of 8.2%, the increase is steeper in the state. In contrast, the unemployment rate for young women in urban Maharashtra decreased sharply from 16.7% to 11.1% over the same period.
How the State is Failing Women’s Aspirations
Maharashtra’s young women, especially in the rural areas, are getting higher education degrees but are unable to find jobs. The unemployment rate is highest (6.8%) among women who have finished secondary or above in schooling, though this has dropped from 13.5% in 2016-17. In contrast,the rate among women who finished higher education in rural Maharashtra increased from 2.8% to 4% and marginally from 9.5% to 9.7% in urban areas.
Mitali Rathod (name changed), has an SSC degree and an ITI diploma and still has managed only informal work as a construction worker in Pune. Anjali Rahtod,19, is partially literate and has been working as a construction worker in Pune for the last 5 years and desperately looking for other work avenues. She has ageing parents and a three year old daughter to care for. We met both the women when we reported on how the E-Shram portal was inaccessible to women.
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Where Are The Jobs For Rural Women?
More than half (57.6%) of working women in rural Maharashtra are self-employed with four in ten being unpaid helpers. The proportion of women engaged in self-employment has increased in both rural and urban areas, which means that they are relying on low quality employment.
Over the last seven years, the proportion of women engaged in agriculture has decreased from 65.5% to 59.03%. The precarity of women in rural and agriculture based jobs has increased too in the aftermath of Covid-19. A paper based on MAKAAM surveys found that the pandemic led to food insecurity, loss of farm incomes, decline in employment opportunities and increased debt traps for single women farmers.
Women sugarcane cutters face a different kind of precarity. Women like Gangabai Prakash Shingare, 40, who has been working as a sugarcane cutter with her parents since age 7, are having to having to undergo forced hysterectomies due to back breaking work in the fields ranging from 18-20 hours a day without any access to resources that can ensure menstrual hygiene – water, toilet, sanitary pads, privacy, or even time.
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This is pushing them into a precarious debt trap without the much promised social security schemes such as EPF, health insurance, life insurance and insurance for their livestock. In 2019, the government of Maharashtra set up the ‘Gopinath Munde Ustood Kamgar Mahamandal’, a board for the welfare of the sugar cane cutters, primarily to address the issue of hysterectomies of women cane cutters. 5000 cane cutters received identity cards issued by the board but no schemes are being provided yet.
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As of August 2024, women agricultural workers in Maharashtra earned around Rs 273 per day. Those engaged in ploughing or tilling, a task largely done by men, earned the highest wage.
Women labourers engaged in non-agricultural work earned the lowest at Rs 212 per day. Those engaged in sweeping and cleaning were also among the lowest earners. Kavita Khomane, a public toilet cleaner in Mumbai, earns 10,000 to 12,000 a month for working more than 16 hours. She also needs to spend money out of her pocket for cleaning materials as they are not provided by the BMC. A March 2019 study of 115 safai karmacharis in the state found that 75% of the women were hired based on their caste background.
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How is MNREGS Faring?
In 2023-24, 2.8 lakh households in Maharashtra completed 100 days of wage employment under NREGA, double that of the previous year. In just over 7 months of 2024-25 financial year, 1.72 lakh households have completed 100 days of employment. Around 44% of the persondays have been claimed by women.
But is MNREGA serving everyone?
First, the proportion of Dalit and Adivasi persons who have received employment has decreased between 2020-21 and 2023-24. For the Scheduled castes, it decreased to 6.32% from 8.67%, while for the scheduled Tribes it reduced to 13.53% to 28.56%.
Secondly, it is failing to provide jobs to the most marginalised NT-DNT communities like Tanabai, 30, who is forced to work as a salgadi (bonded labourer) with a farmer family in Yavatmal, herding sheep and goats because she had not heard of the MNREGA scheme that could have provided her work in her own village. She earns around Rs 50,000-60,000 a year and is allowed only one trip home for two days to see her children. Our investigation across eight villages in Yavatmal, Akola and Amravati showed just one project available under MGNREGS, forcing women to migrate as far as Odisha in search of work.
Read the story here.
It is interesting to note that the Employment Guarantee policy was introduced state-wide in 1977 with the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Act,1977. This scheme was considered “women-friendly” because of its high absorption of rural women labourers but this paper argues how this large presence makes collective mobilisation possible and how such mobilisation leads to implementation of women-friendly provisions.
Jobs for Urban Women
In urban areas, the proportion of women engaged in manufacturing increased from 18.3% in 2016-17 to 23.5% in 2023-24. The proportion of women in information and communications doubled from 4.2% to 8.5%. Women engaged in activities of households increased from 11.7% to 13.1%.
Unkept Promises To ASHA and Anganwadi Workers
The state government promised to revise salaries of Anganwadi workers from 10,000 to 15,000 but has reneged on its promises. Asha workers were also assured to get increased salaries- Rs. 7000 for ASHA worker and Rs.10,000 for block invigilators. In February 2024, when ASHA workers protested at the residence of chief minister Eknath Shinde, he assured them that the government would issue a GR ensuring their pay hike. But that has not materialised either.
Political parties across the board have promised to raise the salaries of ASHA and Anganwadi workers in their poll manifestos. The BJP, NCP – both Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar factions have once again promised a raise of salaries to rs 15,000.
Read our reports on ASHA and Anganwadi workers here and here .
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