Women, Paid Work and Empowerment in India: A Review of Evidence and Issues

Abstract

India is one of the developing countries where women’s participation in the workforce continues to remain quite low, both in absolute and relative terms. As per the recent estimates, 28.7 percent of women as against 54.7 percent of men participated in workforce in 2004-05. Not simply such low participation, rather a progressive range of factors—to which paid work is considered to be a critical input—make a higher participation desirable.