Gender discrimination is the reason for 98% of the employment gap between men and women in India, a new report by Oxfam India has found. The report highlighted that women in India, despite the same educational qualifications and work experience as men, will be discriminated against in the labour market due to societal and employers' prejudices. Oxfam India's 'India Discrimination Report 2022' says that even when employed, salaried women have lower wages than men.

The report says that self-employed men earn 2.5 times more than women. The average earning is Rs 15,996 for men and merely Rs 6,626 for women in urban areas in self-employment.

In addition to this, historically oppressed communities such as Dalits and Adivasis and religious minorities like Muslims also continue to face discrimination in accessing jobs, livelihoods, and agricultural credits.

Self-employed non-SC/ST workers earn a third more than their SCs or STs counterparts, the report shows. The mean income for Scheduled Castes (SCs) or Scheduled Tribes (STs) employees in urban areas is Rs 15,312, as compared to Rs 20,346 for persons belonging to the general category. This means the general category is earning 33% more than SCs or STs, as per the report. The average earning of self-employed workers is Rs 15,878 for non-SCs or STs and Rs 10,533 for SCs or STs.

Caste also acts as a major barrier while accessing credit for agriculture despite many agricultural labourers being from SC or ST communities. STs and SCs receive less than a quarter of the credit shares that Forward Castes (FCs) receive, the report shows.

The report shows that discrimination against Muslims has increased in the past 16 years. The report shows that the discrimination faced by Muslims in 2004-05 was 59.3 percent, which increased by 9%, to 68.3% to discrimination in 2019-20.

The report also says that Muslims also continue to face multidimensional challenges in accessing salaried jobs and income through self-employment as compared to non-Muslims. In rural areas, the sharpest increase of 17% in unemployment was for Muslims as compared to non-Muslims during the first quarter of the COVID-19 pandemic making the rural Muslim unemployment rate 31.4%. 15.6% of the urban Muslim population aged 15 and above were engaged in regular salaried jobs whereas 23.3% of non-Muslims are in regular salaried jobs in 2019-20.

The report shows that the Women’s Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) in the country has rapidly declined from 42.7% in 2004-05 to a mere 25.1% in 2021 showing the withdrawal of women from the workforce despite rapid economic growth during the same period. “This is considerably lower than Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa as per the latest World Bank estimates,” the report says.

Oxfam India has called on the government to actively enforce effective measures for the protection and right to equal wages and work for all women. The Government of India should also incentivise the participation of women in workforce, including enhancement in pay, upskilling, job reservations and easy return-to-work options after maternity, the report says.

What the report finds is if a man and woman start on an equal footing, the woman will be discriminated against in the economic sphere where she will lag behind in regular/salaried, casual and self-employment, said Amitabh Behar, CEO of Oxfam India. "The inequality in the labour market for gender and other social categories, the report finds, is not just due to poor access to education or work experience but because of discrimination," he said.

These findings are based on the government data on employment and labour from 2004-05 to 2019-20. The Oxfam India report refers to unit level data from 61st round National Sample Survey (NSS) data on employment-unemployment (2004-05), the Periodic Labour Force Survey in 2018-19 and 2019-20 and All India Debt and Investment Survey by the government.