India is on the verge of overtaking China to become the world’s most populous country, and its economy is one of the fastest growing in the world. But the number of Indian women in the workforce, already among the lowest 20 in the world, has been shrinking over the years.
This is not only a problem for women like Singh, but a growing challenge to India’s own economic ambitions if its estimated 670 million women are left behind as its population expands. The expectation is that India’s rapidly growing working population will drive its growth in the coming years. Yet experts worry that if India fails to ensure jobs for its growing population, especially its women, it could just as easily become a demographic liability.
Without Singh’s income, her family can no longer afford to live in Mumbai, one of the most expensive cities in Asia, and she is now preparing to move back to her village to save money. “But there’s no job,” she sighed.
Rosa Abraham, an economist at Azim Premji University, said that according to calculations based on official data, the employment rate of women was 35 per cent in 2004 and dropped to around 25 per cent in 2022. But the official figures count as employed people who report as much as one hour of work outside the home in the past week.
Experts say part of the reason for this gap is a national jobs crisis, but also deep-rooted cultural beliefs that view women as primary caregivers and stigmatize them for working outside the home, as in Singh’s case Is.
The Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE), which uses a more restrictive definition of employment, found that only 10 percent of working-age Indian women were either employed or looking for a job in 2022. This means only 39 million women are employed in the workforce compared to 361 million men.
A few decades ago, things seemed to be on a different track.
When Singh became a social activist in 2004, India was still on the cusp of historic reforms in the 1990s. New industries and new opportunities sprung up overnight, forcing lakhs of people to leave their villages and move to cities like Mumbai in search of better jobs.
It felt life changing. “I didn’t have a college degree, so I never thought it would be possible for someone like me to have a job in an office,” she said.
