PUTTING WOMENOMICS 2.0 TO WORK

IN the world's fastest-growing major economy, half the population still sits out of the workforce. That paradox defines India's growth story today.

- TULSI JAYAKUMAR

Women have powered the country's demographic dividend in classrooms and boardrooms, yet remain conspicuously absent from its labour markets. This is not merely a moral or social question, but an economic one.

Women's under-participation represents India's single largest untapped growth lever. Unlocking it will require a shift from token empowerment to what we might call Womenomics 2.0-a structural rethinking of how the economy values, enables and measures women's work.

For nearly two decades, India's female labour force participation rate has defied the logic of prosperity. As incomes rose and education levels improved, women's workforce participation fell-from about 31 percent in 2005 to 23 percent in 2019-recovering only modestly to 37 percent after the pandemic. The latest periodic labour force survey, released in September 2025, suggests a rebound but much of it stems from low-paying, informal, and agricultural work. The quality of women's employment, therefore, remains deeply precarious.

Behind these numbers lie a web of constraints. Safety concerns, social norms, lack of childcare infrastructure, and rigid workplace structures all conspire to keep women out. The pandemic intensified these barriers, pushing many women into unpaid roles or out of the formal labour force entirely. The deeper truth is that India's economic architecture was never designed with women's time, mobility, or care burdens in mind.