Women’s financial sector participation going up
A government report shows rising women’s labor force participation and investment, but education and political representation lag, highlighting ongoing inequality.
Women’s participation in the labour force, the financial sector, and the overall economy has been rising, pointing to a narrowing gap with men, according to a flagship government report.
However, fluctuating and sometimes even downward trends in areas such as education, politics and gender violence suggest that equality is still a long way off, says the report.
The ministry of statistics and programme implementation (Mospi)’s “Women and Men in 2024” report, whose full publication was uploaded on Saturday, shows some startling trends in economic activity, such as a fourfold jump since 2021 in the number of women investing in stocks markets.
Between March 2021 and November 2024, the number of Demat accounts owned by women surged from 33.26 million to 143.02 million, showing a growing appetite for investment in equities and systemic investment plans. Demat is a digital trading account.
These financial trends have also been reflected in private surveys. The latest report by the Association of Mutual Funds in India, as of March 2024, showed women accounted for 33% of the total individual assets under management in mutual funds. The number of officially recognized startups with at least one woman director rose from 1,943 in 2017 to 17,405 in 2024, the report said.
The labour force participation rate or LFPR, a key labour-market metric, also shows a rising trend in the “usual status” for ages 15 years and above -- from 23.2% (2017-18) to 41.7% (2023-24), the report said. LFPR refers to the number of people employed or are looking for work, while the usual status denotes a reference period during which a person is engaged in an economic activity.
{{/usCountry}}The labour force participation rate or LFPR, a key labour-market metric, also shows a rising trend in the “usual status” for ages 15 years and above -- from 23.2% (2017-18) to 41.7% (2023-24), the report said. LFPR refers to the number of people employed or are looking for work, while the usual status denotes a reference period during which a person is engaged in an economic activity.
{{/usCountry}}Yet, the LFPR for women in Asia’s third-largest economy is way below that of men, which stands at 77.2%. It is also below the global average of 50% as calculated by the World Bank.
{{/usCountry}}Yet, the LFPR for women in Asia’s third-largest economy is way below that of men, which stands at 77.2%. It is also below the global average of 50% as calculated by the World Bank.
{{/usCountry}}Gender equality, one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, plays a key role in national health, well being and income outcomes. According to Nobel laureate W Arthur Lewis, an economist famous for his so-called dual-sector development model, the transfer of women’s work from unpaid household work to the paid economy “constitutes one of the most notable features of national development”.
{{/usCountry}}Gender equality, one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, plays a key role in national health, well being and income outcomes. According to Nobel laureate W Arthur Lewis, an economist famous for his so-called dual-sector development model, the transfer of women’s work from unpaid household work to the paid economy “constitutes one of the most notable features of national development”.
{{/usCountry}}Yet, the Mospi’s time-use survey Jan-Dec 2024, released in February, showed women aged 15-59 years spent about 305 minutes (approximately 5 hours) daily in unpaid domestic services, against 24 minutes by men.
Education showed a mixed, fluctuating and not-so-rosy trend. The gender parity index for primary education stood at 1.03 in 2023-2024, against 1.05 in the previous year and 1.03 in 2021-20. At the secondary and higher secondary levels, the indices remained flat at 1.02 and 1.07 in 2022-23 and 2023-24. A higher figure on the index denotes better gender balance.
“It can be deduced that primary and higher secondary levels have high GPI…upper primary and elementary saw fluctuations but remained close to parity,” the report said.
In politics, which impacts decision-making by women as well as how gender policies are framed, data highlight a “decreasing trend in the percentage of women elected to the Lok Sabha relative to the total number of women candidates”, the report said. This suggests voters aren’t too keen to elect women to Parliament. In 2024, 9.3% of total lawmakers in the Lok Sabha were women compared to 10.7% in the previous Parliament (2019).
However, in local bodies, such as panchayats, women see robust participation, the report said. This is mainly because local bodies are the only elected institutions in the country with 50% reservation for women.
The report also showed that while violence against women originating outside their immediate households, such as rape by unknown people, showed a declining trend, domestic violence and abuse within family showed an increase.
“Research has shown that India stands to benefit more from women’s economic inclusion than any other nation in the world. Barriers are still steep. Women need stronger and wider policy support,” said Kritika, who goes by one name and is an adviser to the Self Employed Women’s Association.
