In India, trillions at stake as women disappear from workforce

Closing the employment gap between men and women could expand India’s GDP by nearly US$6 trillion, according to recent analysis from Bloomberg Economics

Between 2010 and 2020, the number of working women in India dropped from 26 per cent to 19 per cent, according to data compiled by the World Bank

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Closing the employment gap between men and women — a whopping 58 percentage points — could expand India’s GDP by US$6 trillion according to a Bloomberg Economics. Photo: AP

Published: 3:58pm, 2 Jun 2022

For years, Sanchuri Bhuniya fought her parents’ pleas to settle down. She wanted to travel and earn money – not become a housewife.

So in 2019, Bhuniya sneaked out of her isolated village in eastern India. She took a train hundreds of miles south to the city of Bangalore and found work in a garment factory earning US$120 a month. The job liberated her. “I ran away,” she said. “That’s the only way I was able to go.”

That life of financial freedom ended abruptly with the arrival of Covid-19. In 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared a nationwide lockdown to curb infections, shutting almost all businesses. Within a few weeks, more than 100 million Indians lost their jobs, including Bhuniya, who was forced to return to her village and never found another stable employer.

As the world climbs out of the pandemic, economists warn of a troubling data point: Failing to restore jobs for women – who have been less likely than men to return to the workforce – could shave trillions of dollars off global economic growth. The forecast is particularly bleak in developing countries like India, where female labour force participation fell so steeply that it’s now in the same league as war-torn Yemen.

Between 2010 and 2020, the number of working women in India dropped from 26 per cent to 19 per cent, according to data compiled by the World Bank. As infections surged, a bad situation turned dire: Economists in Mumbai estimate that female employment plummeted to 9 per cent by 2022.

This is disastrous news for India’s economy, which had started slowing before the pandemic. Modi has prioritised job creation, pressing the country to strive for amrit kaal, a golden era of growth. But his administration has made little progress in improving prospects for working women. That’s especially true in rural areas, where more than two-thirds of India’s 1.3 billion people live, conservative mores reign and jobs have been evaporating for years. Despite the nation’s rapid economic expansion, women have struggled to make the transition to working in urban centres.

Closing the employment gap between men and women – a whopping 58 percentage points – could expand India’s GDP by close to a third by 2050. That equates to nearly US$6 trillion, according to a recent analysis from Bloomberg Economics. Doing nothing threatens to derail the country on its quest to become a competitive producer for global markets. Though women in India represent 48 per cent of the population, they contribute only around 17 per cent of GDP compared to 40 per cent in China.