Female Labour Force Participation: A Comparative Analysis between High and Less Developed Districts of Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

The economic analysis of Female Labour Force Participation has attracted noteworthy attention since the groundbreaker work of Mincer (1962). The contribution of woman in economic activities now has become the burning topic of interest among the galaxy of researchers and analysts for the formulation of policies in the developing economies. Within India, the state of Himachal Pradesh has carved out separate niche for itself in development discourse due to its impressive performance over the years. Over the years, Himachal Pradesh has made great strides in reducing extreme poverty within a generation while at the same time sharing the endeavours of the prosperity even with disadvantaged group (i.e. women’s) who were historically left behind. It has emerged as one of the state which has achieved remarkable growth, especially in the last two decades, which has been accompanied by best human development outcomes in India. The main objective of the present paper is to examine the comparative scenario of female labour force participation between the high developed and less developed districts of Himachal Pradesh. Firstly, we will give an overview of the labour force participation scenario in Himachal Pradesh from 1983 to until 2011 and after that attempt has been made to through the light on the comparative assessment of female labour force participation between high developed and less developed districts of Himachal Pradesh. For the rationale of appraising the female labour force participation of highly developed and less developed districts, we have engrossed the F-test and T-test for the empirical investigation of data. The findings of the study shows that there was statistical significant mean difference between rural and urban areas of highly developed districts regarding cultivators, and there were no significant mean differences between rural and urban areas of high per capita income regarding total female workers, agricultural labourers, household industry and other workers. While, there were significant mean differences between rural and urban areas of less per capita income regarding total female workers, cultivators, agricultural labourers, household industry and other workers.