Why Indian women are absent from the job market
India's stubbornly low female workforce participation is driven as much by a shortage of jobs conducive to women as by social norms.
India’s female labour force participation rate, which is the share of working-age women who are employed or looking for work, stands at 35 per cent. This is well below the global average of 59 per cent, and lower than the Philippines (50%) and poorer neighbours such as Bangladesh (42%). Reaching the level of high-income countries would mean adding roughly 90 million women to the workforce and could add up to $1.4 trillion to India’s economy, the authors estimate.
Most of the earlier research blames patriarchal norms. Gupta and Sabharwal don’t dismiss that, but they break participation down into its economic drivers and compare India with similar-income countries. Their headline finding is that if India created jobs as labour-intensively as Bangladesh does, women’s participation would rise by 13 percentage points—more than three times the gain from matching the neighbouring country’s social attitudes alone.
“The key thrust of the paper is that increasing women’s participation requires strong demand-side reforms, such as lowering constraints posed by stringent labour laws, expanding the share of labour-intensive sectors through restructuring tariffs and domestic stimulus, and human development by investing in health and education,” says Gupta. “This would unlock a virtuous cycle of higher job creation, higher labour intensity and better female participation rates, leading to better socio-cultural norms and further increases in female LFPR (labour force participation rate).”
The logic is straightforward: in a country where most work is informal and low-paid, simply nudging more women to seek jobs without creating new ones would push wages down. Real change, they argue, needs more jobs, not just more willing workers.
The paper also tackles a long-standing puzzle. India’s female participation fell sharply from 37 per cent in 2004-05 to 21 per cent in 2017-18, then rebounded to 34 per cent by 2023-24. The decline, the authors say, was mainly because more girls stayed in school and rising rural incomes allowed families to pull women out of farm work, which is a supply-side shift, not collapsing demand. The recovery, they caution, is less reassuring as it came largely in low-paid farming and self-employment, alongside falling farm productivity and a 32 per cent drop in self-employment earnings, which is a possible sign of distress rather than opportunity.
There is also wide variation between states, from Himachal Pradesh’s 60 per cent to Bihar's 27 per cent, which the authors trace to differences in both local job creation and social norms.
Their prescription is squarely economic: ease labour laws for firms, cut tariffs that hurt labour-intensive sectors like textiles, sign trade deals, and raise spending on health and education—fields that employ large numbers of women. Done well, they argue, more jobs would draw more women in, which could gradually soften the very norms that hold them back.
“This is the biggest opportunity for India to add $700 billion to $1.4 trillion to its GDP by boosting its female LFPR. Through policy and structural reforms, it can make its growth story more labour-intensive and become closer to attaining its ambition of becoming Viksit Bharat,” Gupta adds.
Subscribe to India Today Magazine
India’s female labour force participation rate, which is the share of working-age women who are employed or looking for work, stands at 35 per cent. This is well below the global average of 59 per cent, and lower than the Philippines (50%) and poorer neighbours such as Bangladesh (42%). Reaching the level of high-income countries would mean adding roughly 90 million women to the workforce and could add up to $1.4 trillion to India’s economy, the authors estimate.
Most of the earlier research blames patriarchal norms. Gupta and Sabharwal don’t dismiss that, but they break participation down into its economic drivers and compare India with similar-income countries. Their headline finding is that if India created jobs as labour-intensively as Bangladesh does, women’s participation would rise by 13 percentage points—more than three times the gain from matching the neighbouring country’s social attitudes alone.
“The key thrust of the paper is that increasing women’s participation requires strong demand-side reforms, such as lowering constraints posed by stringent labour laws, expanding the share of labour-intensive sectors through restructuring tariffs and domestic stimulus, and human development by investing in health and education,” says Gupta. “This would unlock a virtuous cycle of higher job creation, higher labour intensity and better female participation rates, leading to better socio-cultural norms and further increases in female LFPR (labour force participation rate).”
The logic is straightforward: in a country where most work is informal and low-paid, simply nudging more women to seek jobs without creating new ones would push wages down. Real change, they argue, needs more jobs, not just more willing workers.
The paper also tackles a long-standing puzzle. India’s female participation fell sharply from 37 per cent in 2004-05 to 21 per cent in 2017-18, then rebounded to 34 per cent by 2023-24. The decline, the authors say, was mainly because more girls stayed in school and rising rural incomes allowed families to pull women out of farm work, which is a supply-side shift, not collapsing demand. The recovery, they caution, is less reassuring as it came largely in low-paid farming and self-employment, alongside falling farm productivity and a 32 per cent drop in self-employment earnings, which is a possible sign of distress rather than opportunity.
There is also wide variation between states, from Himachal Pradesh’s 60 per cent to Bihar's 27 per cent, which the authors trace to differences in both local job creation and social norms.
Their prescription is squarely economic: ease labour laws for firms, cut tariffs that hurt labour-intensive sectors like textiles, sign trade deals, and raise spending on health and education—fields that employ large numbers of women. Done well, they argue, more jobs would draw more women in, which could gradually soften the very norms that hold them back.
“This is the biggest opportunity for India to add $700 billion to $1.4 trillion to its GDP by boosting its female LFPR. Through policy and structural reforms, it can make its growth story more labour-intensive and become closer to attaining its ambition of becoming Viksit Bharat,” Gupta adds.
Subscribe to India Today Magazine
