INTRODUCTION
Minimum wage regulation in India represents one of the earliest legislative attempts to operationalise constitutional commitments to social and economic justice. The enactment of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948[1] marked a decisive intervention against exploitative labour practices by establishing a statutory wage floor for vulnerable workers. Read alongside Article 39(d) of the Constitution of India[2], which mandates “equal pay for equal work for both men and women,” wage legislation forms part of a broader constitutional architecture aimed at substantive equality and labour dignity.
Judicial interpretation has further elevated wage protection beyond statutory obligation. In People’s Union for Democratic Rights v Union of India[3], the Supreme Court held that payment of wages below the statutory minimum amounts to forced labour under Article 23[4] and violates the right to life under Article 21[5]. Yet, despite this progressive jurisprudence, wage inequality persists — particularly for women workers concentrated in informal and low-paid sectors.
This article argues that while minimum wage regulation reflects constitutional vision, it has not translated formal guarantees into substantive equality for women in India.
MINIMUM WAGE REGULATION IN INDIA: FRAMEWORK & OBJECTIVE
- Enactment of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948– was to protect low-paid employment workers from exploitation. It is marked as one of the earliest inventions to guarantee statutory protection by the government to ensure fair wages and set a wage floor. The Act empowers both the Central and State Governments to fix wages based on skill level, nature of work, sector and region.
- Primary Object – of this Act is to provide adequate compensation to maintain minimum standards of living and prevent the workers from facing exploitation due to arbitrary payment practices. Furthermore, this legislation aims at throwing emphasis on constitutional basics such as equality and labour dignity, specifically under Article 39(d), to reinforce equal compensation for equal work.
The Code on Wages, 2019, takes into account a number of other acts on wages, like the Minimum Wages Act and the Equal Remuneration Act[6], to make its ambit extensive and its compliance inclusive.[7]
WHY THE ISSUE OF MINIMUM WAGE REGULATION RELATES TO THE WOMEN WORKER?
In the Indian labour market, women continue to be disproportionately concentrated in low-paid and informal work. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2022–23 by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, a vast majority of female workers are engaged in agriculture and low-wage sectors rather than in secure wage employment. In rural areas, three-quarters of women are employed in agriculture, compared with roughly half of men, signalling both the prevalence of informal work and limited alternative opportunities for women outside traditional sectors. In urban India, although women are increasingly present in services and manufacturing, their representation in regular wage/salary employment remains considerably low relative to male workers. The PLFS data additionally shows that only around 15.9 per cent of women are engaged in regular wage work, a share that has declined in recent years, while a large proportion of women remain self-employed or in informal work where pay rates are arbitrarily set by employers. Such structural patterns severely limit women’s bargaining power over wages and underscore the necessity of Minimum Wage laws to protect rights and ensure fair compensation when market forces alone fail to do so. [8]
The Minimum Wages Act of 1948 was brought about to end the exploitation found in poorly paid work by introducing minimum wages as prescribed by the concerned government. In the case of women workers, the minimum wage therefore aims to address the depreciation in the value of women’s work, which is usually justified by the fact that women’s secondary role in the family makes their wage value less important.[9]
National labour reports have shown that most of these workers are found in a job category where compliance with the minimum wage requirement is lowest[10]. Although the fixed minimum wage applies to these industries, awareness campaigns and mechanisms involving complaints and resolution play a crucial aspect. The concept of a fixed minimum wage has, until now, remained a vital but incomplete measure of combating cases of wage discrimination among grassroots women.
EQUALITY & WAGE LAWS: Formal Guarantees vs Ground Reality for Women Workers
Minimum wages, equal remuneration, and the abolition of discriminatory gender-based wage regulation-these are all ways in which wage legislation formally represents a commitment to equality. At the core, these laws ensure workers’ security against arbitrary wage determination. But for women workers, most of whom are in the informal sector, equality under wage law is more often on paper than in reality. The gap between what wage law promises and what women actually get at the grassroots level continues to be one of the defining challenges.[11]
This gap widens with the practical examination of wage regulation. Minimum wage notifications and classifications are structured in general terms, with an assumption of standard employment and a clearly identifiable occupation. However, as a result of high concentration of females in the informal sector, the wage legislations fail to properly capture the nature, magnitude and intensity of women’s employment.
These are various determinants that weaken the wage legislation at the grassroots level to realise real equality.
- First, the lack of regulation in the informal sector makes it very hard to achieve compliance with wage regulation.
- Secondly, women’s work is commonly devalued and categorised as unskilled, despite their invaluable contributions.
- Thirdly, the mechanisms for regulating these wage laws are limited in nature, including redressal of grievances and ground reality inspections.
Besides, jobs being unprotected, a section of women suffer from lack of education and social dependency in hierarchy ridden society, all of which stand as obstacles to asserting their rights.[12]
Therefore, fair wage regulation for women remains more or less a theoretical concept within the limits of institutional realities and a complex legal framework.
JUDICIAL RESPONSE
Indian Judiciary is a significant force in interpreting laws related to wages, which leads to understanding the persistence of inequalities in terms of not being mere economic but deeply entrenched structural disparities. Indian Judiciary believes that the methodology in which the laws on wages are developed is a weapon in achieving social justice, which is strongly associated with the ‘right to life in dignity’ in relation to women, as it is a group that is also subjected to ‘discrimination in the labour market’.
In People’s Union of Democratic Rights vs. Union of India[13], the court stressed the importance of minimum wage as a statutory requirement, especially for women. In this case, judicial activism provides a shield for female citizens whose actual worth is normally underappreciated through their labour.
Furthermore, Judicial response is a contributing factor to a broad understanding of wage discrimination by challenging the rigid classifications of work. The court identifies the very fact that not every wage discrimination may be based on differential payments for equivalent work, but rather on an undervaluation of certain work roles in society.[14] The question directly affects the issue concerning women’s work, whereby the roles performed are deemed to have been undervalued relative to the male workforce, regarding them as unskilled despite their hard work and responsibilities. With emphasis on fairness in wage determination and refusal of mechanical comparison, the judiciary constructs a base for a legal approach to addressing gender-related inequalities in work.[15]
However, notwithstanding such configurations of potential and actual transformations, the role of the judiciary to effect change remains constrained by issues of reach and enforcement. The availability of the judiciary to women workers, particularly those who are informal, remains limited due to a lack of know-how and grassroots awareness. In addition, notwithstanding the judiciary’s assertion of reach or grass-roots efficacy of implementation of labour laws, such efficacy of implementation remains at grass-root levels. This implies that, despite the judiciary’s role in reinforcing the legal case that women should be paid equally to men, they have not bridged the policy-practice divide.[16]
CONCLUSION
The Minimum Wage Act, 1948, is dedicated to providing economic justice, social equality, and improving the living standards of all people, regardless of gender. Nonetheless, the act itself lacks sufficient adequacy to ensure the proper execution of the said objective.
The reality for women remains one of occupational stagnation and hierarchical structures. Hence, wage disparity and disparity in treatment are not a result of a lack of legal intent, but a lack of translation.
The ultimate question does not only involve whether Indian wage laws are adequate to provide equality, but also how much they are ready to provide equality to the vulnerable section of women. Until this transition period is achieved, it is ensured that the minimum wage policy is continued with its potential to secure labour rights.”
Author(s) Name: Srishti Gupta (Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies)
References:
[1] Minimum Wages Act 1948 (Act 11 of 1948)
[2] Constitution of India 1950, art 39(d)
[3] People’s Union for Democratic Rights v Union of India (1982) 3 SCC 235 (SC)
[4] Constitution of India 1950, art 23
[5] Constitution of India 1950, art 21
[6] Equal Remuneration Act 1976 (Act 25 of 1976).
[7] The Code on Wages, 2019 (Act No 29 of 2019).
[8] Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2022–23 (Government of India)< https://mospi.gov.in> accessed 5 January 2026
[9] Minimum Wages Act 1948 (Act 11 of 1948), Statement of Objects and Reasons, India Code.
[10] Government of India, Second National Commission on Labour Report (2002) ch on Wage Policy and Informal Labour <https://labour.gov.in> accessed 6 January 2026
[11] Ministry of Labour and Employment, ‘Annual Report 2022–23’ (Government of India) <https://labour.gov.in/sites/default/files/ar_2022_23_english.pdf> accessed 4 January 2026
[12]National Commission for Women, ‘Study on Gender Dimensions of Labour and Employment’ (Government of India) <https://ncw.nic.in> accessed 7 January 2026
[13] People’s Union for Democratic Rights v Union of India (1982) 3 SCC 235
[14] Randhir Singh v Union of India (1982) 1 SCC 618 (SC)
[15] State of Punjab v Jagjit Singh (2017) 1 SCC 148
[16] Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, ‘Strengthening Labour Law Enforcement in India’ <https://vidhilegalpolicy.in> accessed 7 January 2026
