Where Women Should Work

India could be producing additional goods and services.

They just need more women in the labor force.

Women in the Labor Force

India

Because many Indians believe that a woman’s place is in the home, businesses have difficulty attracting women. One entrepreneur tried to hire women for her natural food company but wound up employing men for most of the positions located outside the home. Most women were only willing to sell the products through social media. Even women that did work feel massive pressure not to return after their children are born. As a result, the numbers are way imbalanced. In India, 38 million women and 368 million men had paid work last year.

Globally

India ranks in the bottom 12 countries for women in the labor force. Called the participation rate, the proportion that compares the number of women that could be in the labor force to those that are, was 29.4 percent in India. Meanwhile, looking at the entire working population, Indian women have a 24 percent share.

Below, looking at other large economies, you can see India’s low rank:

Unlike Bangladesh where economic development pulled more women into the labor force, Indian women have stayed home. Still though India and Bangladesh remain below global averages because of a patrilineal trap. The trap ensnared both countries because women’s low wages were not enough to offset men’s purported loss of honor:

Typical of South Asia, social norms say that men have more of a right to a scarce job than women and a university education is more important for a boy. Correspondingly, there is little support for husband and wife both working, and women are supposed to get their fulfillment from children:

Our Bottom Line: Production Possibilities Graphs

There is considerable underutilization of women’s talents in India.

As economists, we can use production possibilities graphs (PP curves) to illustrate this economic reality and what it could be. With the dot representing now, and the line showing India’s potential, we see the impact of wasting what women have to offer:

Taking the next step to the GDP, if India’s female participation rate went up by 11 percent during the next seven years, its GDP would pop by $734 billion. And, our dot would glide closer to the PP curve.

My sources and more: Thanks to this WSJ article for alerting me to Indian attitudes toward female labor and then to Brookings and The Wire for more facts and analysis.. From there, to broaden my perspective, the WEF Global Gender Report 2023 had all of  the facts we could possible want (and more).