Women are staking claim to the Family Empowerment Programme
Even as the rural employment programme provides low wages, it is a source of income and opportunity for women who have few other avenues of work in rural India and face barriers in migrating out of the village for work
By : Sunaina Kumar
Update: 2022-08-27 02:30 GMT
Women are staking claim to the Family Empowerment Programme, said Manju Rajput - head of the Family Empowerment Programme at Aajeevika Bureau, a labour rights' organisation in Rajasthan and Gujarat, that works closely on MGNREGA.
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has consistently bucked the trend of declining labour force participation of women in India. All India participation of women in the labour force was 25.1% between 2020-21, while it was 53.19% under MGNREGA. What makes MGNREGA acceptable to the female workforce? And what has been its impact in the last 17 years on the lives of women in India? Sunaina Kumar explores in our second story of Women at Work 3.0.