This Diwali, when you light a match stick, spare a thought for the women who manually pack, label and fill the matchboxes. These women, who account for 91 per cent of the match industry’s workforce, earn an average of ₹113.8/day in Tamil Nadu, compared with ₹ 133.2/day earned by 9 per cent of their male counterparts.

The average daily earnings of a woman worker in Kerala, however, is higher at ₹336 for collection of splints (soft wood), says a survey by the Labour Bureau.

“The average daily basic wages of male workers is higher when compared to women workers in all the occupations in the match industry,” says the survey on the socio-economic conditions of women workers in the match industry, conducted from May 2014 to July 2014, covering 269 big and small units in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Both the States account for 85 per cent of the country’s total matchbox production, with Tamil Nadu’s share at 75 per cent.

In TN, a majority of the matchboxes are handmade by women, who are seen as a cheap labour force. One big reason for the wage disparity is because these women belong to the poorer sections.

From backward classes According to the survey, 60 per cent of these women belong to Other Backward Classes, 17.5 per cent to Scheduled Castes and 2 per cent to Scheduled Tribes.

Also, only about 58 per cent of these women workers, aged 35-59, are permanent, with 34 per cent working on a temporary basis. The rest either work on contract or are casual workers, even as 95 per cent of workers are employed directly by the employer.

Gender disparity in wages is not confined to manual work. Even for operating machines, a male operator in Tamil Nadu is paid over ₹250/day, while a woman gets ₹227/day. India may be a tech superpower, but technology has not yet made inroads into this labour-intensive industry which, apart from catering to domestic industry, is also a major exporter. As much as 82 per cent of wooden matches in India are still being made by hand in the small and cottage sector, and only 6,000 persons out of 2.15 lakh are engaged in the mechanised sector.

Wooden match production in India is split into three sectors — mechanised large-scale, handmade small-scale sector and cottage industry. Handmade small-scale (67 per cent) and cottage (15 per cent) sectors are where technology has remained relatively obsolete, says the survey.

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