Welcome to episode 10 of In Solidarity. Today, we are joined by Bhanupriya Rao, the founder and editor of BehanBox, an independent digital media startup for gender journalism established in 2019. With 13 years of experience in journalism, advocacy, research, and campaigns across Asia, Africa, and Europe, Bhanupriya has also worked as a governance and public policy specialist with organisations like ActionAid, Oxfam, and the World Wide Web Foundation. Before founding BehanBox, she reported on gender issues, women’s political participation, agrarian distress, migration, and climate change for leading digital publications such as IndiaSpend and Scroll.

In this episode, set against the backdrop of the country's elections, we explore how platforms like BehanBox act as inclusive media spaces and amplify female participation in national issues by mainstreaming gender journalism. We look at how journalistic pieces become powerful tools for change, acting as levellers for women by breaking down structural barriers and standing strong with their aspirations. This episode also offers valuable insights and guidance for our young listeners interested in pursuing careers in this vital field.

In this episode of In Solidarity, we're joined by Nalini Nayak, a SEWA leader from Kerala, India. With over three decades of experience organising informal women workers, Nalini Ben's journey and vision highlights SEWA’s commitment to creating empowering platforms. She has played a pivotal role in the fish workers movement in Kerala, in organising domestic and migrant workers and expanding SEWA's reach across India. Trained in social work at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Nalini Ben has collaborated with organisations like Protsahan Trivandrum, Mitraniketan Vagamon, and the Self-employed Women's Association - SEWA.

On this special episode marking International Women's Day, we talk to Nalini ben about her experiences building these movements of informal women workers. She talks to us about valuing care, work, women and their role in resource conservation and climate change and what we need from a macro policy environment to help support these collectives and communities.

Recent data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey, reveals a concerning trend. Despite some improvements in recent years, India's female labour force participation rate continues to remain alarmingly low. Why aren’t women participating in paid work? Or are we not counting them adequately?

To guide us through this exploration, we are honored to have with us today Dr. Ashwini Deshpande, a distinguished Professor of Economics and the Founding Director of the Centre for Economic Data and Analysis at Ashoka University, India. Through our podcast/conversation today, we aim to unravel the reasons behind the persistently low female labour participation rates, understand the root causes and explore a paradigm shift in how we perceive women’s work.

With the internet usage and penetration breaking all records across the globe, the hope to bridge existing gender inequalities in India, that pushes women further to the margins of society, brightens. To tell us more about how the idea for women’s internet emerged, its challenges, about how we can take digitization to women in the informal economy, we have with us on this episode, Shaili Chopra, journalist turned entrepreneur; founder of SheThePeople.TV.

The recent global health crises, the impending climate crises, global economic instability and recession, highlights the loopholes in our existing understanding of the economy and the current development paradigm. Yet, what is the alternative? On April 18, 2023, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the resolution “Promoting the Social and Solidarity Economy for Sustainable Development”. Simel Esim, a political - economist who Heads the Cooperatives Unit at the International Labour Organisation, better explains the SSE, role of the ILO and why it is the best alternative.

It is not a secret that women, especially in the informal economy, in both rural and urban India are working all the time. Then what does falling labour force participation mean? To better explain the gaps in data for women working in the informal economy, to give us an idea of what story the numbers are failing to tell, and what we can do together to represent women’s work better, we spoke to Rukmini S, an independent data journalist and the author of Whole Numbers and Half Truths : What Data Can and Cannot Tell us About Modern India.

'In Solidarity' is a SEWA Cooperative Federation podcast that explores themes relevant to women's economic empowerment and challenges that women-owned, women-run enterprises face. In the fourth episode, titled 'Exploring Informal Economy and Women's Work,' we are in conversation with Martha Chen, Padma Shree awardee and the co-founder of the WIEGO network, which works to raise the voice and visibility of the working poor.

According to a 2018 ILO study, two billion of the global employed population earn their living in the informal economy. The informal economy exists in countries at all levels of socioeconomic development. Despite witnessing rapid economic growth over the last two decades, nearly 90 percent of workers in India have remained informally employed, producing about half of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While women make for only 23 percent of those employed in India's informal sector, 91 percent of Indian women in paid jobs are in the informal sector. Women in the informal economy are particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation due to low and unstable incomes and a lack of social protection and written contracts.

Through this conversation with Martha Chen, we explore questions around informality, women's work, the power of collective voice, and ways to bring informal women workers into the formal economy.

'In Solidarity' is a SEWA Cooperative Federation podcast that explores themes relevant to women's economic empowerment and challenges that women-owned, women-run enterprises face. In the third episode, titled 'Changing the lens: Making visible the invisible,' we are in conversation with Shrayana Bhattacharya, an economist trained at Delhi University and the Harvard Kennedy School. Her book, "Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India's Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence," won the 2022 Times of India JK Paper AutHer Prize for best nonfiction author.

An ILO report from 2018 shows that, on average, women in India spent 297 minutes per day on unpaid care work as opposed to 31 minutes by men. Several studies suggest that women workers are disproportionately represented in labour force surveys because of the nature of the work they perform, which is often home-based, subcontracted, or through sources of self-employment.

Through this conversation with Shrayana, we explore questions around the invisibilisation of women's work, the importance of measuring it, pleasure, independence, and solidarity networks.