The elusive women powering India’s economy

A cursory look at the way India’s workforce has changed in recent years suggests that “women are striding into economic activity”, as Mint reported in mid-May. In fact, by FY24, three in four working women were self-employed. Women generally have a growing share in India’s workforce—a development that public officials persistently tout.But look closely and you’ll find that the details paint a different picture.The ministry of labour said last year that India added 80 million jobs in the four years leading up to FY22. The truth is self-employment and agriculture, much of which is unpaid family work, account for a large part of that increase. That hardly translates to formal jobs with real wages. Take inflation into account and things look even worse.Sure, there are more workers in India’s fields and factories. But simply looking at the number of bodies at work is misleading. The data’s champions ignore the nuance that ends up telling a different story about India’s workforce, but there are professionals who find ways to work with data that is suspect.Seetharaman G made sense of the situation in the latest edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Snigdha Sharma.Read the newsletter here: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/the-elusive-women-powering-indias-economy/Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/