New Delhi: Oxfam India has released a report titled, “India Discrimination Report 2022.
The report highlighted that women, religious minorities including Muslims and historically oppressed communities, such as Dalits and Adivasis continue to face discrimination in getting jobs, livelihoods and agricultural credit in India.
In rural areas, sharpest increase of 17 percent in unemployment was for Muslims as compared to non-Muslims during the first quarter of the Covid-19 pandemic making rural Muslim unemployment rate 31.4 percent.
The report states that 15.6 percent of the urban Muslims population aged 15 and above were engaged in regular salaried jobs whereas 23.3 percent of non-Muslims are in regular salaried jobs in 2019-20. In addition, the lower employment for urban Muslims attributes 68.3 percent to discrimination in 2019-20.
The report shows that the discrimination faced by Muslims in 2004-05 was 59.3 percent, indicating an increase in discrimination by 09 percent over the last 16 years.
Oxfam notes, “Regular-salaried non-Muslims in urban areas earn INR 20,346 on average which is 1.5 times higher than Muslims who earn INR 13,672.
This means non-Muslims are earning 49 percent more than Muslims in regular employment, the report noted. Self-employed non-Muslims earn INR 15,878 on average while self-employed Muslims earn INR 11,421 despite the overrepresentation of Muslims in urban self-employment. This means non-Muslims are earning a third more than Muslims in self-employment”.
The report adds, “Oxfam India calls on the government of India to actively enforce effective measures for the protection and right to equal wages and work for all women. It should also incentivize the participation of women in workforce, including enhancements in pay, upskilling, job reservations and easy return-to-work options after maternity”.
CEO of Oxfam India Amitabh Behar said, “Discrimination in the labour market is when people with identical capabilities are treated differently because of their identity or social backgrounds.
There have been very limited attempts made to measure the extent of discrimination and its impact on the lives of marginalized communities in India so far.
Oxfam India conducted extensive analysis of government data from 2004 to 2020 to understand the inequality and discrimination when it comes to access to jobs, income, health and agricultural credits across the country.
What the report finds is if a man and woman starts on an equal footing, the woman will be discriminated in the economic sphere where she will lag behind in regular/salaried, casual and self-employment.
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”. Web Desk
