Revision summary
After 1991, garments, services, and media opened some paid work and rights talk for women. A slice of educated urban women gained income and delayed marriage. Much new work stayed informal, and unpaid care did not shrink. Female labour-force participation did not rise in line with growth. Class and location decide whether globalisation helps or hurts a woman.
Model answer
Flow diagram
flowchart TD G[Open trade media services] --> J[New paid jobs ideas] G --> I[Informal cheap labour] G --> C[Unpaid care double burden] J --> N[Split net effect] I --> N C --> N E[Education care law] --> N
Conclusion
- Treat care as infrastructure, enforce equal pay and factory law in export chains, and expand skills beyond a few metro services.
Globalisation has given some Indian women pay, mobility, and a louder rights language. It has also packed many into insecure work, heavier unpaid care, and new social pressures. The net effect is therefore split by class, caste, and city, not a simple story of liberation or ruin.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Did globalisation free Indian women?
It freed some with education and city jobs. Many others met it as cheap informal labour and heavier housework.
-
Why did female work not rise with GDP?
Safety, care burden, withdrawal with household income, and poor job quality all pull women out of counted work.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2019 · Q9 · GS I · 10 marks
"Empowering women is the key to control population growth." Discuss. -
2018 · Q9 · GS I · 10 marks
'Despite implementation of various programmes for eradication of poverty by the government in India, poverty is still existing'. Explain by giving reasons. -
2018 · Q14 · GS I · 15 marks
"The ideal solution of depleting ground water resources in India is water harvesting system." How can it be made effective in urban areas? -
2018 · Q18 · GS I · 15 marks
'Women's movement in India has not addressed the issues of women of lower social strata.' Substantiate your view. -
2017 · Q17 · GS I · 15 marks
What characteristics can be assigned to monsoon climate that succeeds in feeding more than 50 percent of the world population residing in Monsoon Asia? (250 words). -
2016 · Q9 · GS I · 12 marks
"An essential condition to eradicate poverty is to liberate the poor from the process of deprivation." Substantiate this statement with suitable examples. -
2015 · Q9 · GS I · 12 marks
Critically examine whether growing population is the cause of poverty OR poverty is the mains cause of population increase in India. -
2015 · Q10 · GS I · 12 marks
How do you explain the statistics that show that the sex ratio in Tribes in India is more favourable to women than the sex ratio among Scheduled Castes?
More from this topic
Q17 · UPSC Mains 2025 · GS I · 15 marks
Discuss the distribution and density of population in the Ganga River Basin with special reference to land, soil and water resources.
Women, Population and Urbanisation
The Ganga plains from western Uttar Pradesh through Bihar to the Bengal delta are among the world’s densest rural regions. Alluvial soil, shallow water and a long growing season explain that density. Himalayan hills and some dry western margins of the basin are thinner. The same water that feeds the field produces flood, and some groundwater is now chemically unsafe. Cities on the corridor are the urban expression of the same fertile strip.
Q19 · UPSC Mains 2024 · GS I · 15 marks
Globalization has increased urban migration by skilled, young, unmarried women from various classes. How has this trend impacted upon their personal freedom and relationship with family?
Women, Population and Urbanisation
Globalisation pulled young unmarried women into urban garments, care, hospitality, and IT-enabled work. The stream cuts across classes, from professionals to shop-floor workers. Personal freedom grows through wages, delayed marriage, and city skills. It remains bounded by curfews, street risk, precarious contracts, and digital surveillance by kin. Families often allow the move for remittances while keeping honour and marriage as levers. The relationship is renegotiated. It is not simply broken and not simply liberated.
Q8 · UPSC Mains 2024 · GS I · 10 marks
Distinguish between gender equality, gender equity and women's empowerment. Why is it important to take gender concerns into account in programme design and implementation?
Women, Population and Urbanisation
Gender equality is sameness of rights and opportunities in law and public life. Gender equity uses special measures because starting points and unpaid care are unequal. Women’s empowerment is agency over body, income, voice and movement. Article 15(3) allows special provision for women; CEDAW and SDG 5 frame empowerment as a process. Gender-blind schemes leak through male capture, unsafe access and digital exclusion. Design and implementation need data, safety, childcare and control of the benefit by the woman herself.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.