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Lockdown and Rural Joblessness in India: Gender Inequality in Employment?

Author

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  • Dutta, Nabamita

    (University of Wisconsin, La Crosse)

  • Kar, Saibal

    (Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta)

Abstract

India experienced one of the strictest lockdowns during COVID-19 and sections of the workforce seemed overwhelmingly disadvantaged. Given substantial poverty still, marginalized daily wage labor and gendered outcomes in the context of India, economic shocks are expected to have disparate implications. Employing World Bank data for rural areas in six states of India, we investigate the probability of female employment during the lockdown period between March and May 2020. Based on marginal estimates of logit specifications, our results show that females, in general, were 8 percent less likely to be employed as compared to males. Females belonging to marginalized castes experienced higher likelihood of being unemployed – between 9 and 14%. Return migrants generally suffered less in terms of finding alternative jobs at the source, but being a female return migrant, the probability of joblessness rises to about 17%. For female return migrants belonging to marginalized castes, the probability of joblessness is about 10%. Lockdown is expected to have raised the economic inequality by gender and needs commensurate interventions.

Suggested Citation

  • Dutta, Nabamita & Kar, Saibal, 2022. "Lockdown and Rural Joblessness in India: Gender Inequality in Employment?," IZA Discussion Papers 15270, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15270
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Betancourt, Roger & Gleason, Suzanne, 2000. "The Allocation of Publicly-Provided Goods to Rural Households in India: On Some Consequences of Caste, Religion and Democracy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(12), pages 2169-2182, December.
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    5. Ashwini Deshpande, 2000. "Does Caste Still Define Disparity? A Look at Inequality in Kerala, India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 322-325, May.
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    8. Thomas Lemieux & Kevin Milligan & Tammy Schirle & Mikal Skuterud, 2020. "Initial Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Canadian Labour Market," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 46(S1), pages 55-65, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Mattos, Fernanda Bárcia de & Dasgupta, Sukti & Esquivel, Valeria & Ghani, Sajid, 2022. "Push and Pull Factors and Women's Rural Employment in India since Covid-19," Review of Agrarian Studies, Foundation for Agrarian Studies, vol. 12(2), December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; lockdown; gender; unemployment; return migrants; India;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

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