Falling female labor force participation in India

New Delhi: Despite rapid economic growth, declining fertility and an increase in education of women over the past 30 years, the female workforce participation rate – proportion of women who are working – in India continues to remain low. In fact, it has shown a precipitous and persistent decline since 1987.

Women form only 19 percent of the workforce in India as of 2021, falling from over 40 percent in the early 90s, according to World Bank and International Labor Organization statistics. In contrast, women constitute more than 50 percent of the workforce globally.

Female participation in India’s labour force — the proportion of the population over the age of 15 that is economically active -– has been steadily declining and hit a low of 19 percent in 2021. Between 2004–05 and 2011–12, about 19.6 million women dropped out of the workforce.

Participation declined from 42.6 percent during 1993–94 to 31.2 percent in 2011–12, as per a World Bank survey. Approximately 53 percent of this drop occurred in rural India, among those between the ages of 15 and 24 years. Female participation rates declined from 34.1 percent in 1999-2000 to 27.2 percent in 2011-12, and wide gender differences in participation rate also persist, according to the International Labour Organization. The percentage of women in the workforce dropped from 33 percent in 2012 to 25 percent in 2020, it said. This may have further nosedived during the pandemic, which had a near-immediate effect on women’s employment. One in four women was considering leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers compared to one in five men, according to a McKinsey survey.

The number of women in the workforce in India dropped to a dire 9 percent by 2022 due to Covid-19 and other reasons, according to a Bloomberg survey.

The reasons

Experts say work-life balance issues, gender role expectations and socio-economic imbalances in India are leading to the exodus. They claim that microaggressions and biases have made women drop out as they feel it’s not worth their time. “It’s a multi-pronged problem. The mindset that women hold larger responsibility for homes has to change. Due to their mindset, they are not able to reach their full potential,” say the experts.

In earlier days people thought it was not worthy to even talk about the percentage of women in the workforce. But changes have been visible, starting from the law itself.