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Women’s Workforce Participation in India: Statewise Trends

Uttar Pradesh, with a population of nearly 200 million, is India’s most populous state and the fourth largest by area. Despite a literacy rate of 57.1% for women in 2011 and a female unemployment rate of 13.1% in urban areas in 2020-21, UP remains an economic powerhouse. It is the largest producer of food grains and accounts for 90% of India’s carpet production. With a Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of INR 17.49 trillion in 2021-22, UP’s economy is driven by its thriving agricultural, textile, and tertiary sectors. This factsheet explores key socio-economic and employment trends in the state.

Creating Flexible and Gender-responsive Workplaces

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a significant shift in the ‘future of work,’ with remote work rapidly becoming a global norm. In India, this shift was accompanied by a gendered impact-women faced higher job losses and slower recovery rates than men, particularly among the highly educated. Despite challenges such as lack of infrastructure and fear of career setbacks, there is a growing demand among women for flexible work arrangements. Studies show that 8 in 10 women in India now prefer greater workplace flexibility, underscoring the need for gender-responsive remote work policies.

Recognising these trends, the Government of India, along with several state governments, has initiated efforts to create remote work ecosystems, including ‘Work Near Home’ centres and co-working spaces. These initiatives, especially in the services sector like IT/ITES-which employs over 4.7 million people with 35% female representation-offer a unique opportunity to boost women’s labour force participation. However, for such models to be inclusive and scalable, they must incorporate thoughtful design principles that address sector-specific challenges and prioritise women’s needs for safety, infrastructure, and digital access.

Women’s Workforce Participation in India: Statewise Trends

Formed in 2000, Jharkhand is rich in natural resources, covering nearly 80,000 square kilometers with 23,605 sq. km of forest land. The state contributes 40% of India’s total mineral resources, housing major industrial towns like Jamshedpur and Bokaro. While mining and industrial activities are significant, agriculture remains the mainstay for 50.4% of the population. Jharkhand’s female Work Participation Rate (WPR) was 35.2% in 2021-22, driven largely by the state’s tribal population. This factsheet explores Jharkhand’s economy, employment trends, and the role of women in its workforce.

Gender Responsive Budgeting: Good Practices from Select States

Mainstreaming gender into development financing has gained global momentum, with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda reinforcing the need for gender-sensitive approaches in financial, economic, and social policies. In India, the journey towards Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) began with efforts in the Sixth Five Year Plan and was institutionalised at the central level in 2004-05. GRB aims to integrate gender considerations across development planning, programme formulation, and budgeting processes.

India’s GRB mechanism functions through Gender Budget Cells and the Gender Budget Statement (GBS), covering 57 ministries as of 2022. While the framework provides an avenue for monitoring fund allocations and their impact on gender equality, significant gaps remain in its implementation. State governments, such as Odisha and Kerala, have shown greater success in embedding gender concerns into policy-making, with Odisha allocating over 40% of its budget towards gender priorities. However, at the national level, gender budgeting remains low, accounting for less than 5% of the Union Budget.

This brief highlights the diverse approaches to GRB across states like Odisha, Karnataka, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh, showcasing experiences, lessons learnt, and good practices in advancing gender equality through fiscal policy.

Women’s Workforce Participation in India: Statewise Trends

Karnataka, the sixth largest state in India, covers an area of 191,791 square kilometres and has a Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of INR 18.85 trillion. Known as India’s leading Information Technology hub, with Bengaluru as the tech capital, Karnataka also has a diverse economy with a strong agricultural base. While over 41% of the workforce depends on agriculture, the services sector contributes 66% to the state’s GSDP. Karnataka boasts one of the highest female labour force participation rates in India, with a Work Participation Rate (WPR) of 31.5% as per the 2021-22 PLFS. Women workers are primarily engaged in agriculture in rural areas and in manufacturing and services in urban regions. This factsheet provides an overview of Karnataka’s socio-economic landscape and workforce trends.

Hybrid Models and Women’s Work in India, Emerging Insights

This rapid assessment delves into how hybrid work models are reshaping employment opportunities for women in India, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. With a focus on flexible working arrangements, the study explores the perceived benefits and challenges of hybrid work for women across different sectors and regions. Data was collected through phone and online surveys from 400 working women, 150 of whom were working in a hybrid model. The assessment highlights the potential of hybrid work, especially in rural India, with a case study of a BPO company in Uttarakhand illustrating the model’s impact.

Key findings suggest that hybrid work offers greater autonomy, work-life balance, and productivity, but challenges remain in its adoption across various sectors, especially beyond ICT-intensive industries. The study also explores the gendered nature of hybrid work, providing insights into how it affects women differently, particularly in non-metropolitan areas. With India’s focus on digital empowerment and enterprise development through the Digital India Programme, hybrid models have the potential to unlock new employment avenues for women, both in urban and rural settings.

This publication offers a comprehensive understanding of how women are adapting to hybrid work models and their implications for women’s economic empowerment in India.

Gender Modules

The Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) is a key initiative of the Government of India, led by the Ministry of Rural Development. It aims to collectivise women into institutions that empower them by addressing their needs and concerns, while ensuring their active participation in the development planning process.

To advance gender equality, DAY-NRLM follows a two-pronged strategy: establishing functional institutional mechanisms that link communities to governance systems, and integrating gender-responsive approaches across all program areas. The goal is to foster an environment where women can actively participate in traditional and non-traditional livelihoods and overcome barriers in both public and private spheres.

As part of this effort, DAY-NRLM has developed a comprehensive set of 17 training modules. These modules are designed to enhance understanding of key gender concepts and human behaviour, using experiential learning methods such as real-life stories, games, and participatory sessions. They will be used to train National Resource Persons, staff, and community cadres, with the aim of building a demand-driven system that recognises the intersectional challenges faced by women and girls.

Developed in collaboration with IWWAGE, these modules cover a wide range of topics, including gender division of labour, asset ownership, and other core concepts, with additional content shaped by state-level needs and the gender operational strategy. This resource is instrumental in supporting DAY-NRLM’s mission to promote gender equality and ensure women’s visibility and empowerment in rural communities.

Women and Work, How India Fared in 2022

2022 presented a landscape of change as the world aimed for greater resilience, recovery and growth as things began to ‘open up’ post the COVID-19 pandemic. Spurred by changes in the overall outlook on ‘work,’ women’s participation in the workforce also reflected a shift, with remote and hybrid work emerging strongly in certain sectors, in continuation of trends set during the height of the pandemic. Similarly, even in work that cannot be performed remotely, there has been a deepening in positive trends. As lockdowns lifted, women persondays in certain employment schemes also climbed.
Against this backdrop, India has assumed the G20 presidency for 2023, and the year provides the nation with the opportunity to not only proactively set the agenda for ‘women-led development’, but also plan for the next phase of growth. There is thus a need to provide a roadmap for enablers of women-led development, whether through participation in leadership, reflection in policy mandates, or even addressing barriers to work. From
the macro-political economic scenario to the specific challenges faced by women, this report situates women’s work against the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead, particularly in light of India’s G20 presidency.
Threaded through with insights from IWWAGE and LEAD’s research on the subject, the report covers trends across available data sources on scheme performances, policy changes, and political announcements, mapping the contours of women’s work in India and looking ahead to 2023.

Intimate Partner Violence in India: Alarming Trends and Accountability measures

Ending all forms of violence against women was recognized as one of the twelve critical areas of concern by the Beijing Platform for Action. The recently concluded “Global 16 Days of Activism”, initiated by Centre for Women’s Global Leadership and carried forward by feminist groups across the world, is a collective campaign that calls to end Gender-Based Violence (GBV) by evolving the focus from awareness to accountability. Among the prevalent forms of GBV, Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is one where the perpetrator not only lacks accountability but also enjoys insulation from the law as well as society. 

IPV is the infliction of physical, sexual, or emotional harm committed to establish or retain a position of control/superiority by a partner in an intimate relationship. It is evident from the increasing number of gruesome cases covered by media platforms in recent times that the experience of IPV is not uncommon. This blog piece explores research and evidence on the prevalence of IPV, policies governing its redressal, and the laws instituted for its prevention and justice.  

The global average prevalence of IPV among women is 30 percent according to the WHO report titled “Violence Against Women Prevalence Estimates”, 2018. IPV is prevalent even in developed nations, not just in low and middle-income countries. In fact, the Nordic paradox illustrates that even countries in the region that perform well in gender equality and other development indices report a high prevalence of IPV. According to World Health Organization (2013) estimates, South Asia has the highest regional prevalence of IPV worldwide at approximately 40 percent. 

India ranks 135 out of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index, an instrument the World Economic Forum uses. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) has attempted to capture the incidence of IPV within India for married women since 1992. NFHS categorises IPV into three kinds: physical, emotional, and sexual violence. Physical abuse is easier to discern than the other two forms. According to the fifth and the latest round (2019-21), the incidence of a “lower” degree of violence on married women – being pushed, slapped, punched, or hair pulled etc. – is approximately 27 percent; approximately 8 percent of married women experience it in “higher” degree which includes being dragged, strangled or threatened with knife/gun, etc.; and around 6 percent married women report facing sexual abuse like physically being forced into unwanted sex acts etc.; and 13 percent face emotional abuse which includes being humiliated, tortured insulted or threatened with harm by the husband. Thus, IPV can take a wide range of forms perpetuated by several factors including socio-cultural and economic aspects. 

NFHS data finds that the incidence of IPV is lower for women with better access to resources required for well-being and growth, like access to education, household wealth, and information. For instance, with increase in the level of education, the incidence of all the three forms of IPV decreases. The largest decline is seen in physical abuse of less severe form across most of the aforementioned factors. For example, the incidence of abuse for women with no education is 36 percent and it falls to 13 percent for those who obtained higher levels of education. Similarly, living in urban areas reduces the chances of abuse by 7 percentage points as compared to those residing in rural areas. Also, belonging to the richest quintile as compared to the poorest, leads to a fall in the incidence of abuse by 20 percentage points. However, these are assumed to be gross underestimates of reality because of the under-representation of the richest quintile in household surveys.

Apart from the socio-economic background, intergenerational violence impacts the level of incidence of violence. Intergenerational transmission of violence means that children of violent offenders are more likely to commit violence. If men are exposed to household violence, the incidence of violence increases by 11 percentage points. Women are more likely to face and accept violence if they have witnessed the same; in this case, the incidence of IPV increases by 33 percentage points. 

Also, NFHS collects information to gauge the normative behaviour of married couples. It asks questions targeted to both husband and wife to understand whether beating the wife is justified in different scenarios such as: if she goes out without telling her husband, if she neglects children, if she argues with her husband, if she refuses to have sex, and if she burns food. Women face 21 percent more abuse by their husbands if they accept being beaten and the incidence of violence by men increases by 8 percent if they justify beating their wives.

While these forms of violence may be categorised differently for the sake of data collection, they can be committed all at once. For example, denial of physical intimacy by women in romantic relationships might lead to emotional manipulation or disregard for consent by men. If women resist, physical and sexual violence might follow as a response to the woman’s defiance. This way men escalate the violation of women’s autonomy and establish control. Contrary to popular belief, frequent expression of care, concern, and love doesn’t necessarily mean an absence of violent behaviour. All these acts coexist and are indicative of larger societal issues and deep-rooted hegemonic masculinity that creep into intimate spaces which go unreported. 

The normalisation of these crimes and victim-blaming by society makes it harder for women to speak up and report it officially. In this context, there is a slew of schemes for the upliftment and empowerment of women, but little effort is directed towards working with the perpetrators of violence i.e. there isn’t enough engagement with men and boys, and the issues caused by convoluted ideas of masculinity prescribed by patriarchal norms. The cultural acceptance of IPV that stems from the belief that men are entitled to women’s bodies in intimate relationships effectively results in condonement of male violence. There is an urgent need to focus on assigning accountability to the perpetrator and strengthening the legal system to provide sufficient recourse and a conducive ecosystem where women can report cases of IPV without facing negative consequences. 

IPV is a complex issue because of the nature of the relationship the woman shares with the perpetrator. Ad-hoc solutions to such problems do not help in reducing these acts of violence. Instead, there is a need for policies, practices, and awareness generation around IPV. One of the biggest challenges is working towards the social acceptance of victims of IPV and holding the perpetrator accountable at the same time. There have been instances where even law enforcement agencies like the police play a reconciliation role. Therefore, bringing about shifts in social consciousness is critical. 

There is a need to take concrete steps like gender sensitisation at different levels – families, communities, educational and state institutions for awareness generation, developing infrastructure like mental health centres using trauma-informed approaches that are pertinent for supporting women in need, and introducing methods of counselling targeting the perpetrators in order to end the cycle of violence. The frequent call for empowering women cannot exist in isolation and needs to be backed with substantive measures being taken to overhaul policies, legislations, criminal codes, reformed police systems, and infrastructure required to address IPV. 

 

Note: Unless otherwise mentioned, the data in this blog piece is drawn from NFHS 5. 

Aparna G, a Research Associate with IWWAGE, is engaged in studying female labour force participation. Her research interests include applied microeconomics and intersectional political economy.