Overview
- The Centre for Social and Economic Progress presented the paper at a seminar on Friday, July 10, estimating India would need to add roughly 90 million women to the labour force by 2047 and that doing so could raise GDP by about $736 billion to $1.4 trillion depending on where new workers are employed.
- Authors and seminar participants say the core problem is a shortage of good, labour‑intensive jobs rather than only norms or unpaid care work, a view endorsed by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and World Bank and ILO economists.
- Recent rises in female participation reflect mostly rural self‑employment and agriculture rather than urban formal jobs, with CSEP noting about 72 percent of the increase came from agriculture or self‑employment and many women working as unpaid family workers.
- The paper calls for demand‑side reforms to create better jobs, including policies to expand labour‑intensive, export‑led manufacturing such as textiles, rationalise tariffs and trade deals, loosen labour‑market constraints where needed, and boost health and education spending.
- Experts warn that without a focus on job quality and social protection new entrants risk low pay and no benefits, and they say turning higher participation into real income gains will require state action on childcare, mobility, skills and formal hiring practices.