Asia may be leading the world in terms of economic recovery from the recent global crisis, but in one critical area it remains a laggard: employment of women. A recent publication by the International Labour Organisation and the Asian Development Bank, “Women and Labour Markets in Asia: Rebalancing for gender equality,” makes out a strong case for effective policy interventions in this important segment of the labour market for two main reasons — the untapped economic potential and the effect on meeting the region's development goals. The finding that the Asia and Pacific region loses up to $47 billion annually because of the limited access given to women for employment and another $16-30 billion as a result of gender gaps in education drives home the magnitude of the social opportunities lost.
But it is not merely the missed growth in incomes that matters. Deeper still lie stubborn differentials that persist between the genders in various attributes of employment — the type of jobs and the regularity of incomes, for instance — reducing women to serve as the “buffer workforce.” South Asia is home to the highest percentage of women in vulnerable employment: 84.5 per cent in 2009, compared with the global average of 52.9 per cent. This vulnerability is exacerbated by the high and rising informalisation of the workforce. The strong link between informal employment and poverty calls for urgent policy interventions to break the vicious cycle. Of the interventions suggested by the ILO and the ADB, two are crucial: better-designed public employment programmes that factor in gender sensitivity and a mechanism to provide for social security. The immediate and long-term effects of these two measures will be highly beneficial. For example, the study provides persuasive evidence that India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has been successful in bringing in unskilled women agricultural workers to this public works programme as private wages for women are lower in the farm sector. Such public works-based solutions, howsoever effective they may be, can only be interim measures. In the long term what matters are coordinated policies that mainstream gender issues in employment. Rising India has everything to gain — economically, socially, and morally — by quickly initiating a process that will empower the women in the workforce.