Women in the India's workforce: Sticky floors, glass ceilings and leaky pipelines

Abstract

Indian women work ten times more than their counterparts in other countries. Yet, as per official statistics, only 1 out every 4 working age women in India are employed. There have been several arguments made to answer this question. One strand of the literature points towards the conceptualisation of the notion of employment and its limitations in identifying and recognising the kinds of work that women do. Relatedly, some argue that ways of data collection inherently fails to capture women's employment - 'data is sexist!', as they say. A second strand argues that women's domestic work, care burden and gender-based norms keep women out of the paid workforce. Finally, a more recent strand points towards the lack of job creation as a fundamental reason for fewer women in the workforce. Based on primary surveys and official secondary data, the talk addresses each of these strands to unpack the low and falling levels of women's employment in India. I draw from my personal experiences as a...