Female Labour Force Participation in India: Why Female Labour Force Participation Still Lags in Leadership

Female Labour Force Participation Latest News

• The Indian government failed to get Parliamentary approval to advance the implementation of the Women’s Reservation Act, with its linkage to the delimitation bill proving to be a stumbling block. 
• This has renewed focus on the broader question of women’s participation in India’s economy — not just in legislatures, but across the workforce, academia, and corporate boardrooms.

Why Women’s Economic Participation Matters

• The World Bank (2023) stated that for India to become a developed economy by 2047, it must grow at nearly 8% per year — a target that is impossible to achieve with low female workforce participation. 
• A 2018 study found that constituencies with women legislators recorded 1.8 percentage points higher economic performance per year compared to those with male lawmakers.
• This demonstrates that women’s leadership directly translates into better economic outcomes.

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Female Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) — Explained

• Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) is the percentage of the working-age population (typically 15-64 years) that is either employed or actively seeking employment. 
• It is a key indicator of how productively a country is utilising its human capital. 
• A low female LFPR means a large section of women is neither working nor looking for work — representing a significant loss of economic potential.

India’s Current Position

• Female LFPR has risen from 33.9% (2022) to 40% (2025) — a positive trend.
• However, it remains well below the global average of 49%.
• Emerging market peers significantly outperform India — Brazil at 53% and Vietnam at 69%.

Why is India’s Female LFPR Low?

• India’s low female LFPR is primarily a demand-side problem, not just a supply-side one. 
  • Supply-side approach — focuses on encouraging more women to enter the workforce by relaxing social norms, providing childcare, etc. 
  • However, in a labour-abundant economy like India — where most workers are in the informal sector with low wages — simply increasing female labour supply without creating new jobs would only reduce wages further, not improve welfare.
  • Demand-side approach — focuses on creating new jobs through promotion of labour-intensive industries. 
  • An increase in demand for labour raises both employment and wages simultaneously — a far more effective strategy for raising female LFPR in Indian conditions.
• Other reasons include:
  • Persistent patriarchal norms and institutional barriers
  • Limited opportunities in high-productivity sectors
  • Underrepresentation in decision-making roles

Women in Senior Academic Positions

• Despite rising LFPR, women remain significantly underrepresented in senior positions across India’s premier institutions.
• At the national level, women in professor-level roles increased from 25.9% (2011–12) to 29.5% (2021–22).
• Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)
  • Female faculty proportion is stagnant at around 14% of total strength nationally.
  • IIT-Jodhpur has the highest proportion at 22% (57 out of 259) in 2024-25 — an improvement from 14% in 2014-15.
  • Some IITs have even seen a decline in female faculty over the years.
• IIMs (Top Management Institutes)
  • Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad: ~20% 
  • Indian Institute of Management Bangalore: ~26% 
  • Indian Institute of Management Calcutta: ~31% 
  • Indian Institute of Management Lucknow: ~24% 
  • Indian Institute of Management Indore: ~19% 
  • Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode: ~30%

Women in Business and Corporate Leadership

• Ownership and Entrepreneurship – Female-owned proprietary establishments stand at only 27% of total unincorporated sector enterprises (Statistics Ministry, 2025).
• Senior Management – For every 100 males working as legislators, senior officials, and managers, there are only 13 females in similarly high positions (Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2025) — a stark gender gap in management.

Corporate Boards

• Nearly all of India’s leading firms have at least one woman director — but 77% of firms have only 1-2 women directors.
• Only 7% of BSE 200 and 5% of NSE 500 board chairpersons are women.
• Experts note that the “one-woman director” mandate is often treated as the maximum rather than the minimum, reducing it to a compliance exercise rather than genuine inclusion.
• Research suggests that women need to constitute at least 30% of a board — the concept of “critical mass” — for their presence to be substantive rather than symbolic in influencing strategic decisions and board culture.

Conclusion

• While India has made progress in increasing women’s workforce participation, deep structural gaps remain in leadership, academia, and business. 
• Achieving inclusive growth requires not just more participation, but meaningful representation and economic empowerment at all levels.

Source: IE