Kerala 2005 - of Planning Commission

CHAPTER 7
RECKONING CAUTION: EDUCATED UNEMPLOYMENT AND GENDER UNFREEDOM
105
Table 7.6: Employment Status, CDS Survey
Employment Status Male Female Total
Casual 19.0 6.6 15.6
Regular 19.2 31.5 22.5
Permanent 32.1 50.7 37.1
Self-employment 29.7 11.3 24.8
Total 1,032 381 1,413
Source: CDS Survey on Employment and Unemployment, 2003.
in the public sector – 58 per cent of those with
professional qualification are in the public sector
while it is only 21 per cent for those with SSLC and
35 per cent with higher secondary.
As against regular employment, casual employment
is not only irregular but also widely perceived to be
low-skilled work. Women’s position in casual and
self-employment is strikingly low but needs to be
read with caution. Two other indicators can help us
interpret the survey findings. One, the worker sex
ratio (female employees per 1,000 male employees)
in the organised sector was 542 for Kerala (the
highest among the 15 major States) vis-à-vis 188 for
all-India. However, worker sex ratio was very high
in the private organised sector, 848 compared to
344 in the public sector (Srivastava, 1999). The figures
over time reveal that the growth in the proportion of
women in organised sector employment in Kerala, like
in rest of India, has been in the private sector where
conditions of work are less formal; the share of public
sector employment has been declining in the 1990s
(Government of Kerala, 2001).
Two, primary research suggests that women avoid
low paid and low status manual work, wherever
possible. Women in poorly paid cashew work went
to considerable lengths to see their daughters married
to men who would provide for them as housewives
(Lindberg, 2001). Where they were involved in such
manual work on the household compound or for
relatives, women were often reluctant to reveal this,
fearing loss of social status (Osella and Osella, 2001).
There is also substantial documentation of women’s
failure to distinguish work in the household compound
or home-based work from house work, particularly
where it involved allied activities such as agriculture
or dairying (Narayana, 2002; Arun, 1999). Early in
the recent phase of migration, it was noticed that
the withdrawal of women from paid manual labour
in migrant households influenced poor non-migrant
households to behave in the same way at the cost of
considerable hardships (Mencher, 1989). Hence, Kerala
is no exception to the pattern of women who report
unemployed or are engaged in housework, working
for the provision of the household through unpaid
services while also balancing resources with needs
and thrift (Kodoth, 2004a). It is this particular aspect
of women’s invisible work that programmes with high
visibility in public policy, such as Kudumbashree, that
combine micro-credit with small-scale development
initiatives through women, have tried to build upon.
Hence, at least part of the explanation is the very high
incidence of unemployment among educated women
in the State.
A detailed economic sector-wise classification reveals
that men’s employment is relatively spread across
sectors with construction, trade and commerce, and
community and social services accounting for 14-15 per
cent each followed by non-household manufacturing
(10 per cent), education (9 per cent) and transport
(8 per cent). In contrast, 75 per cent of the women were
concentrated in four sectors, with education showing
the highest concentration at 39 per cent followed
by health, community and social/personal services,
and trade and commerce (11-12 per cent each). This
is influenced by the concentration of women, noted
earlier, in a rather narrow set of educational segments,
already identified with them.
Education provides a further differentiation of this
employment profile. The less educated (SSLC and HSC)
are spread over in a number of sectors but mostly in
construction, trade and commerce, community and
social/personal services, non-household manufacturing
(e.g. processing industries such as coir, cashew and fish),
transport and education. Those with higher education
such as post-graduates and professionals have a high
concentration in education, health and community and
social/personal services.
The occupational profile of those employed revealed
that half the women reported being professional or
technical workers, as against only 20 per cent of men.
This was followed by clerical and related work with
31 per cent of women as against only 22 per cent of
men. Four out of five women workers seem to be in
professional/technical/clerical employment as against
two out of five men. A higher proportion of men than
women was working in production/transport activities
and in managerial occupations.