| UPSC Relevance GS Paper 1 (Society): Women empowerment, social barriers, gender equality. GS Paper 2 (Governance & Social Justice): Policy measures for inclusivity, schemes like Shakti and Indira Gandhi Urban Guarantee. GS Paper 3 (Economy): Impact of tariffs, demographic dividend, Labour participation, inclusive growth. Essay Paper: “Empowering women is not a social gesture, it is an economic imperative.” |
Why in News?
India’s economic ascent, currently valued at $4.19 trillion, has placed it firmly in the global growth narrative. The country is poised to become the world’s third-largest economy. However, this momentum is now under threat due to the proposed 50% tariffs by U.S. President Donald Trump on Indian exports worth nearly $40 billion.
These tariffs could reduce India’s GDP by nearly 1%, particularly hitting labour-intensive industries like textiles, gems, leather, and footwear — sectors that disproportionately employ women. The development has exposed a deeper structural concern: India’s economic vulnerability is closely tied to its gender gap in employment.
Background: India’s Economic Growth and Gender Gap
India has been one of the fastest-growing major economies, now valued at $4.19 trillion, and is projected to become the world’s third-largest economy in the coming years. However, this impressive growth coexists with a persistent gender gap in the labour market.
- Female Labour Force Participation (FLFPR): In India, FLFPR has remained low, fluctuating between 37% and 41.7%, compared to the global average of ~50% and China’s 60%.
- Economic Potential: According to IMF estimates, closing this gender gap could boost India’s GDP by 27% in the long run, underlining the untapped potential of women’s participation.
- Sectoral Vulnerability: The very sectors now threatened by proposed 50% U.S. tariffs — textiles, gems, footwear, and leather — are both labour-intensive and women-dominated, employing millions of female workers. Export declines of up to 50% could severely affect these industries.
Thus, India’s failure to integrate women fully into the workforce is no longer just a social challenge but a significant economic liability, especially when external shocks like tariffs target precisely those sectors where women are concentrated.
The Demographic Dividend at Risk
India is currently at the peak of its demographic dividend, where the working-age population far outnumbers dependents (children and elderly). This provides a unique opportunity to accelerate growth through higher productivity and employment.
- Time-bound Opportunity: This favourable demographic window will remain open only till around 2045, after which the ageing population will start to shrink India’s workforce — a trend already seen in countries such as Japan, the U.S., and China, which successfully leveraged their demographic advantage earlier.
- The Gender Factor: However, India’s ability to reap this dividend is constrained by its low Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR). If women are not productively integrated into the economy, the potential gains from this demographic edge will remain unrealised.
- Global Lessons: Experiences of Southern European economies like Italy and Greece show that low FLFPR can undermine growth prospects, leading to stagnation and fiscal stress despite a skilled workforce. India risks repeating this trajectory if corrective action is not taken.
Structural Barriers to Women’s Workforce Participation
Despite India’s strong growth story, women’s participation in the labour force remains constrained by deep-rooted structural barriers:
- Cultural and Social Norms: Traditional expectations often restrict women’s mobility and career choices, reinforcing the idea that their primary role lies within domestic spaces rather than the workforce.
- Safety and Infrastructure Gaps: A lack of safe public transport, sanitation facilities, and reliable urban infrastructure discourages women from seeking employment, particularly in urban and peri-urban areas.
- Burden of Unpaid Care Work: Women in India spend 9.8 times more hours on unpaid care and household responsibilities compared to men. This invisible labour significantly reduces their availability for formal employment.
- Low-quality Employment: A large share of rural women are engaged in unpaid family labour, subsistence farming, or low-productivity informal jobs, which offer little scope for economic independence or career advancement.
- Policy Inertia: Reforms in labour laws, childcare systems, and workplace flexibility have been slow. Inadequate recognition of women’s economic contribution further limits their bargaining power and opportunities.
These barriers collectively restrict women’s economic agency, weakening India’s growth potential and amplifying vulnerabilities in times of external shocks, such as tariff disruptions.
Global Lessons for India
Experiences from other economies show that women’s participation in the workforce is not a natural byproduct of growth but a result of deliberate policy choices. Key lessons include:
- United States (WWII): During the Second World War, the U.S. mobilised women into factories and services, ensuring equal pay provisions and childcare support, which normalised women’s large-scale workforce participation.
- China (Post-1978 Reforms): With state-supported childcare and education, China successfully integrated women into industrial and service sectors, raising its Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) to ~60%.
- Japan: Through workplace reforms and family-friendly policies, Japan increased FLFPR from 63% to 70%, which directly contributed around 4% to GDP per capita growth.
- Netherlands: Introduced flexible part-time work with full benefits, enabling women to balance domestic responsibilities while contributing meaningfully to the formal economy.
These examples underline that legal protections, care infrastructure, and flexible work models are essential pillars for gender-inclusive growth. India, facing tariff shocks and demographic pressures, can draw from these models to design context-specific reforms.
Indian Case Studies: Pathways to Inclusion
India already has several examples that demonstrate how targeted interventions can increase women’s workforce participation when structural barriers are addressed:
1. Karnataka’s Shakti Scheme
- Provides free bus travel for women, leading to a 40% rise in female ridership.
- Enhanced mobility for work, education, and enterprise, particularly in semi-urban and rural areas.
- Reduced dependence on male family members for transport, thereby expanding women’s autonomy and labour market participation.
2. Gig Economy Platforms
- Platforms such as Urban Company have onboarded over 15,000 women service providers, with average earnings between ₹18,000–₹25,000/month.
- Many of these platforms extend insurance, maternity benefits, and skill development programs, making them safer and more inclusive spaces.
- Flexible hours and location-based work offer women an alternative to rigid formal employment structures.
3. Public Employment Guarantee Initiatives
- Rajasthan’s Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme has created over 4 crore person-days of work, with 65% of beneficiaries being women.
- Employment spans sanitation, urban greening, and care work, bringing women into public sector-led wage employment.
- Importantly, it has enabled many first-time women workers to access income-generating opportunities close to their homes.
These case studies illustrate that policy support, digital platforms, and public employment programs can significantly expand women’s participation in the workforce. When women are integrated into economic activities, the result is higher household incomes, improved social outcomes, and stronger GDP growth.
Way Forward: Policy Recommendations
For India to safeguard its growth momentum and fully harness its demographic dividend, gender-inclusive economic policies must become a priority. Key steps include:
- Invest in Care Infrastructure: Expand childcare centres, eldercare facilities, and maternity protections to reduce the unpaid care burden that keeps women out of the workforce.
- Transport and Safety: Strengthen safe and reliable public transport networks and enforce workplace safety norms, especially in urban and industrial clusters.
- Flexible Work Models: Encourage part-time, gig, and remote work while ensuring social security protections so women can balance work and domestic responsibilities.
- Targeted Incentives: Provide tax breaks, subsidised credit, and skilling platforms for female entrepreneurs. Invest in gender-focused digital literacy to bridge the technology gap.
- Labour Law Reforms: Formalise gig and informal sector work, ensure equal pay for equal work, and extend maternity as well as paternity benefits to encourage shared caregiving.
- Awareness Campaigns: Launch nationwide campaigns to challenge cultural stereotypes, promote women role models, and normalise women’s participation across all sectors.
Together, these reforms can transform India’s structural disadvantages into opportunities, ensuring that women are not left behind in the growth story but are placed at its very centre.
Conclusion
The looming U.S. tariff shock is more than an external trade disruption; it exposes India’s internal weakness — the exclusion of women from its growth story.
Empowering women is a growth imperative, not just a welfare agenda. It will determine whether India can convert its demographic dividend into prosperity or squander it.
India stands at a crossroads:
- One path leads to inclusive growth, resilience, and global competitiveness.
- The other leads to economic fragility and missed opportunities.
For India to truly rise as a global powerhouse, its progress must rest on the shoulders of both its men and women.
Upsc mains practice questions-
Q1. The proposed U.S. tariffs on Indian exports highlight the gendered vulnerabilities of India’s economy. Analyse the impact of trade shocks on women-dominated industries and suggest structural reforms to make India’s growth more inclusive. (15 marks, 250 words)
Q2. Despite India’s high economic growth, its female labour force participation rate remains among the lowest in the world. Discuss the socio-cultural and structural barriers that limit women’s workforce participation in India. (10 marks, 150 words)
SOURCE- THE HINDU
Found this helpful?
Bookmark for revision, Practice the mains question, and
Share with fellow aspirants! THANK YOU