According to the recently released Time Use Survey, the female rate of participation in unpaid household labour was more than 80%. Only 25% of women surveyed engaged in employment or related activities during the surveyed period. This is despite the Female Labour Participation Rate increasing from 23.3% in 2017-18 to 41.7% in 2023-24, as noted by the Economic Survey tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on January 31, 2025.
As Women’s Day rolls around, programmes are held, awards given and notable figures felicitated. Detractors raise murmurs about the need for such a day at all, asserting that enough change has transpired already. DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programmes are being rolled back by the US government vide executive orders. A 2024 study in England saw 47% of Britons saying that women’s equality has gone far enough.
Closer home, only 23% of Indians surveyed for a Pew Research Center study believed there was a lot of discrimination against women in the country. This was even as the study noted a preference for traditional economic roles when there were few jobs available, with 80% generally agreeing men should have more rights to a job than women, including 56% who completely agree with the statement.
So what does the average Indian woman experience and how is her day structured? We examine some recent surveys to arrive at a broader picture of the day-to-day of an Indian female.
Use of time
On February 25, the National Statistics Office released an all-India Time Use Survey covering the period from January 2024 to December 2024. This was the second instance of this survey, conducted for the first time in 2019, which tracks the time fractions of the population expend on certain activities as delineated in accordance with the International Classification of Activities for Time-Use Statistics (ICATUS) 2016. This includes time spent in activities including empoyment, unpaid caregiving, production of goods and services for own use, volunteer and trainee work, and unpaid domestic service, as well as time spent on learning, social and community participation, practice of religion, leisure and cultural activities, and self-care. Other countries like Australia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, USA and China have conducted similar nation-wide Time Use surveys.
According to the 2024 survey, which measured activity for a reference period of 24 hours, 81.5% of female participants participated in unpaid domestic services, while the rate for men was 27.1%. Meanwhile, 34% of female participants undertook undertook unpaid caregiving for household members, as contrasted with 17.9% of male participants. If the proportion of time in a day is considered, males spent 2.6% of their day on unpaid domestic and care work, while females spent 19.7%
According to the press release associated with the survey, 75% of males and 25% of females between the ages of 15 to 59 years participated in employment and related activities. Without the breakdown by age, the figures stood at 60.8% for males and 20.7% for females.
In 2019, the participation rate for employment and related activities was 70.9% for males and 21.8% for females in the age group 15-59 years. I
People aged 6 years and above spent 11% of their days’ time in culture, leisure, mass media and sports practices. In 2019, this figure was 9.9%.
At the workplace
The good news: women continue to enter the workplace. The Economic Survey 2024-25 noted a consistent increase in the Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) over the past seven years, from 23.3% in 2017-18 to 41.7% in 2023-24. This was driven largely by a rise in women entering the workforce in rural India: the rural FLFPR rose from 24.6% in 2017-18 to 47.6% in 2023-24.
This report was foreshadowed by the results of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), released by the Labour Bureau in October, 2023, which showed a female participation rate of 37% in 2022-23. The survey was conducted by the Union Labour Ministry through the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation and other agencies, and posed questions to those who subscribed to government schemes about the policies or initiatives for women in the companies for which they work.
The scenario changes across States. Seven States or Union Territories have an FLFPR greater than 40%, while 21 have a FLFPR between 30 to 40%. Only three states have an FLFPR of less than 20%, contrasted with 20 states in 2017-18. Sikkim reports the maximum rate of 56.9%.
Part of the increase has been attributed to various government programmes, including skilling initiatives, and improved access to credit for livelihoods afforded to women’s collectives under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana — National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM).
So there has been a notable increase in women entering the workforce, but how long do they stay there?
A recent World Bank report noted that women in India faced a sharp drop in their labour force participation post-marriage. The report estimated that female employment rates in India drop by 12 percentage points after marriage, which amounts to about one-third of the female pre-marital employment rate. This is even in the absence of children.
Further, there is the question of the type of work women undertake.
Employment choices are often gendered, or mediated by gendered factors. A study on work conditions and employment for women in Bhuj, Gujarat, showed that women were inclined to engage in traditional employment activities from home, such as bandhani, embroidery and fall beading, rather than other opportunities, including non-farm casual labour. Reasons for this included flexibility of work and the possibility of working from home. However, 30% of the women stuck to their traditional occupations due to the lack of other options. In several parts of the country, construction work is a huge employer of women, particularly in off-seasons for agriculture.
The India Employment Report, 2024, released in April 2024, noted that increases in self-employment and family work were largely owing to women.
The report, created by the Institute for Human Development and the International Labour Organization, also noted that the female LFPR was quite low compared to the male rate: in 2023, this was 78.5. India’s FLFPR is lower than the global rate of 49. In 2019, it had plunged to 24.5.
As India continues to grow, it still faces challenges with job generation and employment. For women, market-influenced challenges with getting a job are combined with social barriers. This includes restrictions on mobility, expectations pertaining to child-bearing and child-rearing, and the notion of women as primary caregivers and homemakers. In 2023-24, 64.5% of women aged between 15 to 59 years cited childcare and personal commitments as their reason for not working.
These challenges persist even as women turn to entreprenurship and self-employment. This year, the gender budget, or budget allocated for schemes pertaining to women’s development, has increased to 8.9% of the overall Budget, contrasted with 6.5% last fiscal year. But only 0.7% of the gender budget has been allocated to the Ministry of MSMEs, which runs schemes such as the Entrepreneurship and Skill Development Programme and the Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries.
Published – March 08, 2025 09:06 pm IST