What India Needs To Hit $30 Trillion GDP Target By 2047 - 145MN Women In Workforce

Female labour participation, which was already low in India, has dropped since the COVID-19 pandemic. Over two years since the pandemic first hit the world, the percentage of female labour participation continues to remain low. According to the latest data, from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, female labour participation has been low since 2016.

The CMIE said that the female labour participation rate was 9.4% between September and December 2021. The organisation also observed that most Indian women in urban areas are not part of the workforce.

India’s ambitious $30 trillion GDP target by 2047 is at risk, with a significant gap of 145 million women in the workforce, according to a recent report by Bain & Company and Magic Bus India Foundation. While projections estimate an increase of 110 million women in the workforce, raising the female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) to 45%—or 255 million working women—the target workforce required to achieve the desired economic growth is closer to 400 million.

Economic Potential of the Female Workforce

To achieve the $30 trillion GDP goal, the report emphasizes that women would need to contribute nearly 45% of the projected growth, adding $14 trillion in economic value. This would necessitate a dramatic increase in the FLFPR among women aged 15-59, from the current rate of 35-40% to 70% by 2047. Without sufficient participation, the economic trajectory may not fully realize its potential.

Unique Challenges for Rural and Urban Women

The report identifies varied challenges affecting rural and urban women differently. Rural women face limited job availability and a volatile work environment, which constrains their participation in the workforce. Urban women, on the other hand, encounter job-skill mismatches and wage disparities that further limit their professional engagement. 

Calls for Inclusive Efforts to Boost Participation

The report highlights the need for a comprehensive approach involving the government, private sector, nonprofits, and investors to bolster women’s workforce integration. It recommends initiatives like gender-inclusive policies, financial literacy programs, and enhanced market access for women entrepreneurs. Navneet Chahal, a partner at Bain & Company, highlights strategies such as empowering rural women through ecologically-embedded entrepreneurship and supporting urban women with targeted skills training and childcare solutions.

A Roadmap for Economic Inclusion

To harness women’s potential fully, the report outlines a path to do ecologically embedded participation by 2047. By addressing structural challenges and fostering inclusive policies, India could unlock $14 trillion in economic contributions from women, bridging the gap toward its $30 trillion GDP target.

Urban women Not Part Of Workforce: Data And Research

The labour force participation rate—calculated by dividing the labour force and total working-age population—declined for both men and women during the pandemic. However, the situation for the former is improving steadily unlike for the women. Men’s labour force declined to 67.4% between September and December 2021 as compared to 71.2% during September and December 2019.

Shiney Chakraborty, a research analyst at the Institute of Social Studies Trust, remarked to Bloomberg that women who lost their jobs in the pandemic or who left the workforce because of the pandemic are yet to return. Chakraborty added that the reasons that demotivate women from returning are domestic chores, lack of social support, and the absence of a care economy.

According to CMIE data, female labour participation dropped by nearly three per cent between 2019 and 2021. Meanwhile, the participation of women in the workforce in rural areas is marginally higher than in urban areas. The data comes as a shock as it is assumed women in urban areas are educated and thus have access to better job opportunities. However, these factors are some of many reasons contributing to the low rate of female employment: marital status, education, caste and religion.

Experts Explain 

What factors contribute to the low participation of women in India? Based on global evidence, some of the main reasons are undue attention to domestic work, violence against women, orthodox beliefs, and educational expectations; meanwhile, other important reasons such as education, fertility rates and the age of marriage, economic growth and urbanisation are also known to influence the numbers.

Domestic Work Is Not Recognised

A majority of women in India work and contribute to the economy in one way or the other, much of their work is not recognised or documented. The household labour is not recorded in any statistics and their work goes undocumented or unreported. In India, a high portion of women adheres to domestic duties. According to data, in 2011-12, 35.3% of the rural female populace and 46.1% female populace in urban areas were engaged in domestic duties.

Despite such a large amount of female population engaging in domestic work, it is yet to be recognised as work and women’s domestic labour is yet to be acknowledged. Domestic work not being accounted for as work is a primary reason why women’s participation in the labour force is low.

Violence Against Women

The increased rate of violence against women terrorises women and their families. Working women are often told to take care of their safety, especially at night time. Women are generally asked to avoid working night shifts.

Due to the concerns over women’s safety, their participation in the workforce remains low. While women in urban areas can afford to pay attention to this factor; for most women in rural areas, it is a means of survival. A do-or-die situation where they don’t have a choice which is why urban women's participation rate stand lower than that of those from rural areas.

Orthodox beliefs

Patriarchy's favourite dialogue, “Women of our family don’t work,” has contributed a lot to the statistics on the rate of women's participation in the workforce are not allowed to work by their own families or in-laws because it is believed that women should focus only on domestic work. It's a man's task to earn for the family. The idea of women earning and managing the expenses of the household is considered shameful.

The idea that women should look after a family, the absence of childcare facilities like creches etc further restricts women to domesticity. Such orthodox beliefs keep many capable women away from the workforce and the participation rate thus remains low.

Educational Expectations

India has made considerable progress in increasing access to education for girls and an increasing number of women of working age are enrolling in secondary schools. Jobs were not created in large numbers in sectors that could readily fit women, though.

According to Sonal Desai, professor of Sociology at, the University of Maryland, "A man with a grade 10 education can become a salesman, a truck driver, or a mechanic but do you think these opportunities are not open for women? Certainly not. Education is certainly associated with lower workforce participation for women.”

This has resulted in low numbers of female participation in the workforce. It is imperative that we include women in the workforce and increase the rate of their participation, especially in urban areas, so as to aid the development of women as well as the economic growth of the country.

The views expressed are the author's own.