Now Reading: Women’s work participation could add 2 points to GDP growth study finds
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Women’s work participation could add 2 points to GDP growth study finds
Women’s work participation could add 2 points to GDP growth study finds
A new study estimates that a 10-percentage-point rise in India's female work participation rate (WPR) could add nearly two percentage points to GDP growth, making women's employment one of the strongest drivers…
A new study estimates that a 10-percentage-point rise in India's female work participation rate (WPR) could add nearly two percentage points to GDP growth, making women's employment one of the strongest drivers of economic expansion. The authors, writing in The Hindu, argue that India's growth story will remain incomplete unless the work participation of half the population increases significantly.
India's female WPR remains below 30%, among the lowest in the world, comparable to Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The rate declined steadily between 1983 and 2018, as women withdrew from agriculture due to mechanisation. While the government has highlighted a post-2020 increase, the study attributes this to COVID-induced distress: male urban job losses forced women back into subsistence agriculture as unpaid family labour.
The study warns that India's recent GDP growth has been concentrated in capital-intensive sectors such as finance and IT, which absorb few workers, while labour-intensive sectors like textiles and food processing have shed jobs. The authors estimate that actual GDP growth is at best 4.5% per annum, far below official figures of 6.2%.
Indian Opinion Analysis
India’s female labour force participation rate has tracked a U-shaped curve that economists attribute to structural transformation, but the post-2020 uptick is driven by distress, not opportunity. The broader pattern, falling farm employment alongside capital-intensive non-farm growth, mirrors the experience of other developing economies that failed to generate enough formal-sector jobs. With the household savings rate already under pressure and aggregate demand weak, a sustained rise in women’s market employment would directly lift GDP, provided the jobs are in manufacturing or services rather than unpaid family labour. The next test will be the periodic labour force survey for 2024-25, due later this year, which will show whether the distress-driven feminisation of agriculture has reversed or deepened.
Source: thehindu.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
