Towards a Gendered and Green Job Guarantee Programme in India

Abstract

The social organization of productive and reproductive labour leaves women disproportionately vulnerable to climatic changes and extreme weather events. In the Indian context, this could further reduce women’s labour force participation rates from levels that are already relatively low. Employment opportunities for women in the clean energy sector have been noted to create transformative changes in their lives only with policies such as government intervention to provide accessible public services. Towards this end, I propose a gendered and green job guarantee programme directed towards education, health, public transport (or universal basic services), climate mitigation, and climate adaptation activities.

The intersections between gendered livelihoods and the climate crisis, as well as the gendered and environmental implications of the existing rural employment guarantee in India, are reviewed. Gender-disaggregated employment creation through the proposed job guarantee programme and the budgetary implications are estimated, along with suggestions for potential sources of financing. The programme is estimated to result in the creation of 36 million guaranteed jobs, which accounts for 6% of the workforce as of 2023. Of these jobs, women’s employment opportunities constitute 11.6 million. The number of guaranteed jobs created for women accounts for 4% of the rural female workforce and 11.6% of the urban female workforce. Thus, a gendered and green job guarantee programme in India could be an effective form of government intervention to address the interlinked issues of women’s work and climate action in India.