Gender Discrimination in the Construction Industry: The Case of Two Cities in India

Abstract

The Indian construction industry has inherent gender biases owing to the perceived nature of work and mainstream notion of it being a male-dominated industry. Women construction workers are trapped in a cycle of late entry, being unskilled, receiving low wages and, therefore, being casualized. Based on field surveys in the two cities of Ahmedabad and Trivandrum, this article documents the processes of discrimination that women construction workers face. The study tries to pinpoint the wide gender gap in the areas of education, skill development, upward mobility, and the importance of women’s earnings to family vis-à-vis men’s earnings. Although many labor laws are applicable to the industry, none of them have been able to ensure construction workers’ basic right to safe working and living conditions. The only way forward seems to be necessary amendments in the Building and Other Construction Workers Act, its better implementation, and marketbased mechanisms where the demand for higher skill levels and better services might create conditions to arrest gender discrimination and inhuman exploitation in the construction industry.