The Indian government has failed in its bid to get Parliamentary approval to bring forward the implementation of the Women’s Reservation Act, with its linkage to the delimitation bill proving to be a stumbling block.
Greater participation of women in the economy, though — and not just at the legislative level — is necessary for India to become a developed economy.
In 2023, the World Bank said that for India to become a developed economy by 2047, it had to grow nearly 8% every year, which was not possible with the low level of female participation in the workforce. In fact, a 2018 paper found that Indian constituencies with women legislators saw higher economic performance of about 1.8 percentage points per year compared to those with male lawmakers.
With the economy posting impressive growth rates in recent years, the female Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) has risen from 33.9% in 2022 to 40% in 2025.
Yet, it remains well below the global average (49%) and emerging market peers like Brazil (53%) and Vietnam (69%). According to a new paper by Shishir Gupta and Aalhya Sabharwal of Centre for Social and Economic Progress, the promotion of labour-intensive industries is key to raising the female LFPR.
“…in labour-abundant countries like India, where the bulk of the labour force is in the informal sector with low wages, an increase in female labour supply only in response to relaxation of norms would imply an increase only in female employment at the expense of a further reduction in wages. An increase in demand, on the other hand, increases employment and wages,” they said.
Few women at the top
While the female LFPR is rising, their presence in senior positions in various spheres, such as the country’s top educational institutions, is much lower. In Indian Institutes of Technology, the proportion of female faculty is stagnant at around 14% of total strength. IIT-Jodhpur, at 22%, had the highest proportion of female faculty in academic year 2024-25: 57 out of 259. While this was a notable improvement from 14% (7 out of 49 in 2014-15, some IITs have even seen a decline.
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The story is only slightly better at India’s other world-class higher education institutes, the Indian Institutes of Management, with IIM-Ahmedabad having 20% female faculty, Bangalore 26%, Calcutta 31%, Lucknow 24%, Indore 19%, and Kozhikode 30%.
At an all-India level, the percentage of females in professor and equivalent positions rose to 29.5% in 2021-22 from 25.9% in 2011-12.
Disparity in business
As in academia, female representation is low in business decision making. As per the statistics ministry’s Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises, the share of female-owned proprietary establishments stood at 27% in 2025. Look a step below ownership and the situation is worse: for every 100 males working as legislators, senior officials, and managers in 2025, there were only 13 females in similarly high positions, as per the Periodic Labour Force Survey. While nearly all of India’s leading firms have a woman as a director on their boards, 77% had only 1-2 women as directors.
“The mandate for ‘one-woman director’ is often interpreted as the maximum number of women needed on the board, regardless of the board’s size,” law firm Khaitan & Co noted in October, adding that only 7% of BSE 200 and 5% of NSE 500 board chairpersons were women. “These positions are crucial for guiding strategic decisions and driving board culture… Without achieving a critical mass (30% as per research), their presence risks being symbolic rather than substantive in India’s corporate governance landscape,” Khaitan added.
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