Goldin's research on US women's work patterns has resemblance

The challenges Indian women face are similar but theyve seen little progress on jobs or social norms

- VIDYA MAHAMBARE

In 2006, this year’s Nobel laureate in economic sciences, Claudia Goldin delivered the Annual Richard T. Ely Lecture on ‘The Quiet Revolution that Transformed Women’s Employment, Education, and Family.’ In it, Goldin talked about three stages in the employment history of US women: the horizon, the identity, and the decision-making. How do these apply to India?

The horizon refers to young women’s expectations about their future involvement in paid work over the working life. Goldin showed that in the early last century, young US girls perceived the ‘horizon’ to be narrow since they expected to withdraw from paid work after marriage, similar to what they had witnessed with their mothers. As a result, not many took up higher education.

In India, girls who decide for themselves how long, where, and what to study are a minority. Although less so in urban areas, it is often a parental decision. In many cases, the decision about a daughter’s higher education is not about her job opportunities, but returns in terms of attracting an educated groom from a financially sound family.

The identity is about women being able to find respectable jobs. It is about eliminating the stigma about married women taking up jobs, so they can take up paid work even when a husband’s earnings are sufficient to run a family. In developing countries such as India, in addition to the availability of suitable jobs, it is about the complementarities which enable women to take them up.