A ‘Duet’ for India’s Urban Women

Context: The COVID-19 crisis has drawn attention to the insecurities that haunt the lives of the urban poor. Public works could provide valuable support to the urban poor, especially if women get most of the jobs.

A blueprint for Urban employment scheme: Decentralised Urban Employment and Training (DUET).

• Need: To fight against two contingencies-

1. Individual- Such as illness and underemployment
2. Collective- Such as lockdowns, floods, cyclones, financial crises and so on.

• Features:
  • Issuance of “job stamps”: Each standing for one day of work at the minimum wage.
    • Distributed to approved public institutions such as universities, hostels, schools and urban local bodies who would use it to hire labours.
    • Wages, paid by the government, would go directly to the workers’ accounts against job stamps certified by the employer.
  • Independent placement agency: Would take charge of assigning workers to employers to avoid collusion.
  • Inclusion of skilled workers:
  • Like masons, carpenters, electricians and such which would widen the range of possible jobs.
  • Integration with training: non-skilled workers could learn skills “on the job”, as they work alongside skilled workers.
  • Priority to women workers.
    • Organising work on a part-time basis which will be in sync with their other household responsibilities like taking care of children.
    • It will reinforce the self-targeting as women from well off families would be less likely to seek such employment.
• Advantages:
  • Benefit of self-targeting and generating valuable assets or services by facilitating productive work.
  • A secure entitlement to minimum wages.
  • Will help in ensuring the multiplicity of potential employers for urban poor.
  • Could help in regular maintenance of public premises.
  • Benefits for Women worker:
    • Economic independence and increased bargaining power within the family and help them to acquire new skills.
    • Mitigating gender inequality and female oppression in India.
    • Would promote women’s participation in the labour force: Only 20% of urban women in the age group of 15-59 years spend time in “employment and related activities” on an average day. – (National Sample Survey data for 2019)
    • Less corruption: Women may be more reluctant than men to participate in a scam, if only out of fear.

Best practices: “Service voucher” schemes of some European countries. (they are used by households instead of public institutions, for the purpose of securing domestic services such as cooking and cleaning.)

Conclusion: Public works could provide valuable support to the urban poor, especially if women get most of the jobs. This will ensure better protection of urban poor against disasters like COVID-19 pandemic.