India Ranks Low in Women Workforce

The World Bank’s India Development Report, which was released in May 2017, revealed that India has one of the world’s lowest female participation in the workforce, ranking 120th among 131 countries.

Key Findings

  • Women’s participation level has been dropping since 2005, despite having 42% women who are graduates.
  • In India, women participation was just at 27% compared to China and Brazil where it was between 65-70%. Even in neighboring Sri Lanka and Bangladesh the figure was higher.
  • India’s potential GDP growth rate can be boosted by a percentage point if women participation increases.
  • Jobs for Indian women remain primarily in the agriculture sector.
  • The share of women in services and industry is less than 20%.
  • Women entrepreneurs typically create more jobs for women but in India the number is few.
  • Incentives, safe and conducive environment besides a level playing field are critical to boost women participation in the Indian workforce.

Reasons for Decline in Women Participation in Workforcev

  • While a larger number of younger women in India are opting to study in schools, many are dropping out of the workforce due to lack of opportunities and others due to rising income levels.
  • Those women who are moving out of the agriculture are not being able to find jobs elsewhere.
  • Concerns about women’s safety are strong and often genuine while flexibility, availability of childcare and adequate pay are important given social norms that require women to reconcile work with household duties.

Why it is critical to have more women in the workforce

Working, and the control of assets it allows, lowers rates of domestic violence and increases women’s decision-making in the household.

Challenges

  • Persistence of India’s traditional gender norms, which seek to ensure “purity” of women by protecting them from men other than their husbands and restrict mobility outside their homes.

The other challenges include: Lack of access to traditional male-dominated job networks and also the fact that women often end up in lower-paid and less-responsible positions than their abilities would otherwise allow them -- which, in turn, makes it less likely that they will choose to work at all.

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