Budget 2025: India looks to bring more women into workforce

New Delhi: India is considering several measures, including incentives, to enhance the female labour force participation rate in the country, people familiar with the matter said. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman could include a plan for this in the February 1 budget, they added.

“Incentives could be woven into the employment-linked incentive schemes,” one of the persons told ET.

The global female labour force participation rate is over 50% compared with 80% for men. In India, it’s at 41.7% for women and 77.2% for men.

Flexible work arrangements for women and adequate infrastructure creation to encourage them to join the workforce are also being examined.

An advisory could be issued on flexible arrangements for women, the person added. These could be sector specific, such as steps that could be taken in the care economy.

Measures are also being examined to enhance mobility and improve public transport for women as well as infrastructure support, such as creches at work.

Task Force Likely to Submit Report Soon

A task force headed by labour secretary Sumita Dawra, set up by the labour and employment ministry on enhancing female labour force participation, is expected to submit its report by the end of this month. This will form the basis of a roadmap to draw more women to the labour market, said the people cited above.

There is a consensus at the highest level that in order to achieve Viksit Bharat, or developed country status, by 2047, the rate of participation by women should be at par with the global rate, and this can be possible only with targeted interventions, they said.

These initiatives can help enhance women’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) while allowing the country to reap the benefits of the demographic dividend fully.

Indian women contribute 18% to GDP, despite constituting 48% of the population, according to the National Family Health Survey. Bridging the gender gap in employment could potentially lead to a 30% increase in the country’s GDP, according to experts.