Female work participation and gender differential in earning in West Bengal

Abstract

Female work participation in West Bengal is one of the lowest among all the states in India. However, it varies widely across the state’s 341 blocks. An analysis of some block level characteristics based on Census 2001 data show that female work participation varies inversely with the female literacy rate and percentage of Muslim population, and is positively related to the overall work opportunity as reflected by male work participation. However, there are a few blocks with very high percentage of Muslim population where female work participation is rather high. These are the blocks where women are engaged in home-based work in large numbers. We conducted surveys of households in two such areas in Murshidabad and South 24 Parganas, respectively.