Declining women labour force participation in India

Abstract

Increased participation of women in the workforce increases productivity, boots GDP and incomes. As per the report, Women at Work, Trends 2016, published by ILOi , female labour force participation globally stood at 49.6% in 2015. However, there is a lot of variation in female labour force participation (FLPR) across countries. In 2015, FLPR stood at 28.3% in South Asia, 56.7% in the USA, 62% in China and 58.8% in South-East Asiaii . Apart from Nepal, all countries in South Asia have low FLPR. In 2015, Nepal had a high FLPR of 81.13%, Bangladesh had a FLPR of 32.38% and Sri Lanka had a FLPR of 35.9%. High FLPR in Nepal has been attributed to migration of spouses which puts women in the workforce. FLPR for Bangladesh has increased recently due to growth in labour-intensive export based industries in urban areas and expansion of microfinance in rural areas. Sri Lanka’s FLPR has remained constant for more than a decade despite the increase in female literacy, decline in maternal mortality and low fertility rate. This has been linked with occupational segregation and low levels of female entrepreneurship