'Beyond the Norm : Scope of Non-Traditional Livelihood Skilling for Women in Achieving Women's Economic Empowerment'

While, women have always ‘worked’, in their homes, in fields and in public spaces, their work has been undervalued and invisible in national data accounting systems. Globally women are less likely than men to participate in the paid labour market due to the ‘male breadwinner’ ideology which dictates policies of hiring, work space design, use of tools and technology, etc. which is mostly denied to women. Also, even when they do enter the workforce, women’s work tends to mirror the roles based on gendered division of labour. This makes women most likely to find work in underpaid, semi-skilled or unskilled, care or domestic work.Concerns over such descending rates of FLFP along with the limited choices of paid work that is available for them, makes it absolutely necessary to not only diversify the kind of work that is accessible for women in the market, including in domains that are considered “non-traditional”; but also understand the kinds of barriers they face, while aspiring to join decent work. Based on this premise, various CSOs have provided training to women in non-traditional livelihoods (NTL), linked them to the market and advocated for policy change in order to mainstream women in non-traditional livelihoods. The CSOs have also reached out to traditionally ‘left-behind’ communities and have further developed entrepreneurial efforts in order to create livelihood choices that hitherto were non-existent for these women and communities. The Non-Traditional Livelihoods Network was founded in 2016 with an aim to break the occupational segregation across intersections of gender, caste, class that formerly limited the scope of economic activities for disadvantaged women and communities