In India, women working on wages and salaries have often been led down by the government. The reason for this ‘call-out’ has been given by the government itself in its recent Economic Survey 2024-2025, which has not received the attention it deserves. Women continue to earn a small portion of what men do.
The right panel of the given graph presents real wages for male and female self-employed workers over the years 2017-2018 to 2023-2024. A scrutiny of the given data reveals a worrisome picture, with a major decline in real wages for both genders.
Apparently, male real wages fell by 9.1% between 2017-18 and 2023-24, while female real wages dropped by a staggering 32.2% in the same period, not even reaching a Break-Even. The gender wage ratio from male to female, with respect to wages adjusted for inflation in 2023-24, reveals that female self-employed workers earn merely 34% of male real wages, reinforcing significant gender pay disparity.
Real wages are calculated by adjusting nominal earnings for inflation using the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The decline in real wages for both males and females suggests that inflation has outpaced wage growth, leading to a decline in actual purchasing power.
Female self-employed individuals suffer more, as both nominal and real wages have either stagnated or declined over the years, leading to higher economic vulnerability. Many self-employed women work in low-margin, informal sectors such as handicrafts, domestic work, or small-scale agriculture, where wages are not indexed to inflation.
Self-employed women have comparatively lower access to credit loans and financial tools, limiting their ability to scale up their businesses and protect themselves against inflation. This suggests a worsening condition of the self-employment sector, with no effective remedy for the plight of female self-employed individuals.
The right panel of the given graph presents real wages for male and female regular wage workers, or salaried employees. The decline in real wages reflects the impact of inflation on salaried employees, which has eroded their purchasing power.
Male workers faced an erosion of 6.4%, while female workers faced a steeper decline of 12.5% over a span of six years between 2017-18 and 2024-25. The gap in wage erosion suggests that inflation affects women more severely, potentially due to occupation segregation, lower increments, and fewer opportunities for salary negotiations.
Considering that formal employment brings relatively more opportunities for both genders, female real wages are still only 74.7% of male real wages.
Against this background, there are some corporate leaders, who tout “Why everyone should work 70 – 90 hours a week”. While these affluent individuals have these expectations, they have failed to increase the real income of regular wage workers, especially women.
The same goes for the government, which has failed to implement a sustainable minimum wage policy (across all three sectors – salaried employment, self-employment, and casual labour – particularly to safeguard the interests of female workers) and revised labor code, which signifies incompetence.
The provided graph presents nominal and real wages for casual labor engaged in non-public work in the informal sector from 2017-18 to 2023-24. While real wages for these workers have increased over time, their low absolute levels make this increase less meaningful in terms of economic well-being. Even if inflation is adjusted, Rs. 242 per day is not sufficient to cover food, rent, healthcare, education, and transportation.
Many states in India have minimum wage recommendations higher than these figures, yet casual laborers remain underpaid. In this category, women earn only 65.7% of male wages inflation adjusted (Rs. 159 vs. Rs. 242), reflecting severe gender pay disparity, where wages are already insufficient for subsistence.
Casual laborers provide their valuable services in the informal sector. This sector in India includes a variety of occupations across different categories, consisting of small and marginal farmers, construction workers, weavers, artisans, toddy tappers, scavengers, and barbers, among others.
Also, all figures of real income represented in the given data are average earnings, so there are people around the country who earn less than that too.
The Economic Survey 2024-2025 exposes the government’s failure to protect the rights and livelihoods of working women. The staggering decline in real wages, the yawning gender pay gap, and the precarious existence of casual laborers all scream of a systemic failure.
While nominal wages may rise, inflation, job insecurity, and inadequate social protections continue to erode the financial stability of millions. True progress demands more than just statistical improvements; it requires meaningful policy interventions, fair wages, and systemic changes that uplift the working class. Until then, wage growth remains a mirage – visible on paper, yet out of reach for those who need it most.
