As elections approach in Bihar, the state government is turning its focus towards women, a vote bank that has increasingly become very important in the last few years. Yesterday, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced a 35 per cent reservation for women in government jobs.
Women’s importance in elections
Over the past decade, female voter turnout has consistently exceeded male turnout in Bihar. In the 2020 Assembly elections, turnout among women stood at 59.7 per cent, compared with 54.6 per cent among men, marking the third consecutive poll where women led the numbers.
Similarly, in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, around 59.9 per cent of the female electorate participated, compared to about 55.3 per cent for men. More recently, in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, women again outvoted men, 59.45 per cent against 53 per cent.
Bihar’s Sex Ratio
At the demographic level, Bihar has shown gradual improvement. According to a March NITI Aayog report titled Macro and Fiscal Landscape of the State of Bihar, the sex ratio at birth in Bihar was 933 females per 1,000 males as per the 2011 Census, notably higher than the national average of 914.
Women’s workforce
While reservations for women is a good move, the question is: how are women actually performing in Bihar’s workforce?
The female labour force participation rate in Bihar has increased significantly in recent years. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey, the rate among women aged 15 and above was just 4.1 per cent in 2017–18, one of the lowest in India. By 2022–23, it had jumped to 22.4 per cent, and in the latest 2023–24 round, it stood at 30.5 per cent, a seven-fold rise in six years.
But the story doesn’t end here. The type of work women do has also changed. In 2017–18, Bihar’s female workers were split fairly evenly between self-employment, salaried jobs, and casual labour. But by 2023–24, over 83 per cent of women were self-employed, while only 4.8 per cent had regular wage jobs, and 11.7 per cent were casual workers. However, women in Bihar continue to face a big pay gap compared to men.
Wage gap
Despite increasing participation in the workforce, women in Bihar continue to earn significantly less than men. According to the Bihar Economic Survey 2023–24, self-employed rural women earn just Rs 4,434 per month on average, while men in the same category earn over Rs 10,000. The gap is even wider in urban self-employment, where women earn Rs 8,342, compared to Rs 18,583 earned by men, a difference of more than Rs 10,000.
While the disparity is smaller in regular salaried jobs in urban areas, with women earning Rs 22,394 compared to men’s Rs 23,869. But this gap remains more pronounced in rural salaried employment. There, men earn Rs 18,504 per month, while women earn Rs 14,848, resulting in a monthly gap of Rs 3,656.
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