Kerala’s Right to Disconnect Bill

Why in News?

Recently, Kerala has introduced the Right to Disconnect Bill, 2025, aiming to protect private-sector employees from being forced to answer work calls, emails, or messages after office hours.

What is the Right to Disconnect Bill of Kerala?

• About the Bill – The Kerala Government’s proposed Right to Disconnect Bill, 2025 seeks to protect private sector employees from excessive work-related digital communication beyond official working hours.
• Important provisions – The bill grants employees the right to disengage from calls, emails, messages, and virtual meetings after work hours, without fear of disciplinary action.
• Significance – If enacted, Kerala would become the first Indian state to legislate such a right.
• International examples – Countries such as France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Belgium have introduced similar measures.
• Evidence from France’s experiments with shorter workweeks indicates improvements in mental health, productivity, and job satisfaction, suggesting that regulated working hours can benefit both workers and employers.
• Indian context – In India, where long workdays and constant digital availability are often normalized, the Right to Disconnect could serve as an important corrective, particularly for women navigating paid work alongside unpaid care responsibilities.
• Similar policy – Karnataka’s paid menstrual leave legislation are among the most progressive state-level initiatives aimed at addressing the everyday pressures faced by workers, particularly women.
• Other measures – Alongside such reforms, the expansion of digital technologies, remote work, and flexible employment arrangements has created new opportunities for women’s participation in the workforce.
• Continuing concerns – However, despite these changes, women continue to shoulder a disproportionate share of unpaid domestic and care work and this raises a crucial policy question.

What are the impacts of various reforms?

• Impact of new Labour Codes – Parallel to state-level reforms, the four new labour codes introduced by the Ministry of Labour and Employment aim to improve women’s participation in the workforce.
• These reforms permit women to work at night across sectors (with consent and safety measures) and promise equal access to higher-paying jobs.
• Such measures are significant in a country with one of the lowest Female Labour Force Participation Rates (FLFPR) globally.
• Since 2004–05, India’s FLFPR declined steadily, reflecting deep-rooted structural and social constraints.
• Education and the U-Shaped Hypothesis – Economists often explain trends in women’s workforce participation using the U-shaped relationship between education and employment.
• Women with very low education levels tend to work out of economic necessity, while those with higher education access better-paying jobs and professional opportunities.
• Women with intermediate education, however, are more likely to withdraw from the workforce due to social norms, marriage, or caregiving responsibilities.
• Additionally, India’s pattern of economic growth has been skewed towards sectors that traditionally employ fewer women, limiting job opportunities outside agriculture.
• Recent data shows a modest rise in FLFPR, largely driven by self-employment among rural women, particularly in agriculture—highlighting the lack of quality non-farm jobs for women.
• Effect of digitalisation – Between 2015 and 2022, India witnessed a sharp increase in internet access and digital penetration, coinciding with a gradual rise in FLFPR.
• Several studies point to a positive relationship between digitalisation and women’s employment, particularly for salaried and self-employed women.
• Digital technologies enhance women’s access to job information, increase autonomy, and enable flexible work arrangements such as work-from-home (WFH).
• Limitations – However, these benefits are not evenly distributed.
• Women who lack digital literacy, autonomy, or household support often fail to benefit fully from ICT-led opportunities.
• Gig Economy – The gig economy, often promoted as flexible and empowering, has attracted increasing numbers of women across the Global South.
• For women with lower education levels, gig work can provide income opportunities while allowing them to manage domestic responsibilities.
• Digital entrepreneurship and e-commerce – They have opened new avenues.
• India has approximately 7,000 women-led start-ups, accounting for around 7.5 per cent of all start-ups, and women make up nearly 14 per cent of entrepreneurs.
• Digital platforms allow women to access markets, build networks, and bypass traditional barriers such as mobility constraints.
• However, most women entrepreneurs remain concentrated in micro-enterprises within the informal sector, facing limited access to credit, technology, and social security.

What are the important issues women facing?

• The “Double Burden” of Labour – The Covid-19 pandemic normalised remote work, especially in the formal sector.
• While the work from home (WFH) increased women’s labour force participation, it also blurred the boundary between paid work and domestic labour.
• Historically, Indian women have worked from home as unpaid family labour or as home-based piece-rate workers in industries such as garments and bidi rolling.
• Contemporary corporate WFH arrangements, however, largely involve middle-class women who are expected to perform professional duties alongside domestic work—often without a corresponding redistribution of household responsibilities.
• Studies consistently show that WFH women experience a “double burden”, juggling paid employment and unpaid care work, particularly childcare.
• Flexible jobs may increase women’s participation, but they do not automatically reduce unpaid labour.
• Corporate Work Culture and Burnout – India’s corporate sector reports some of the highest burnout levels globally.
• Long workdays, constant digital surveillance, and expectations of round-the-clock availability have intensified since the pandemic.
• Employees working with multinational firms often operate across time zones, leading to disrupted sleep cycles and poor work–life balance.
• For women, these pressures are compounded by entrenched gender norms assigning primary responsibility for household and care work to them.

What lies ahead?

• Need for Structural Support – Economist Claudia Goldin highlights that when women combine paid work with caregiving under WFH arrangements, frequent interruptions reduce productive work time.
• The care economy and the market economy are deeply interlinked, and women’s participation in paid employment reshapes household care dynamics.
• In this context, the Right to Disconnect Bill can be a meaningful intervention for formal sector workers.
• However, its effectiveness depends on complementary structural policies, including:
  • Affordable and accessible childcare and crèches
  • Paid parental leave for both parents
  • Social security for informal and gig workers
• Without such support, flexible work arrangements risk reinforcing, rather than reducing, gendered inequalities.
• Flexible work arrangements and digital technologies have expanded opportunities for women, but they are not a panacea.
• In the absence of structural care support and equitable household labour distribution, flexibility often translates into intensified workloads for women.
• Progressive legislation like the Right to Disconnect must therefore be embedded within a broader framework of gender-sensitive labour and social policies to genuinely ease women’s work burdens.

Reference

The Indian Express| Reducing the Burden on Women