As India’s population booms, overtaking China, where are its working women?

Nation soon becomes most populous nation, overtaking China, and is Asia’s third-biggest economy, yet vast majority of women not working or seeking work

Despite progress in education, health, female-friendly labour policies, falling fertility rates, they still face hurdles like housework, childcare, and a lack of jobs

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Indian women cover themselves and their children with scarves as they brave a dust storm. Many women find it hard or even impossible to work outside of the home, given their domestic duties. File photo: AP

Published: 4:30pm, 22 Mar 2023

Pinky Negi, an Indian teacher with two master’s degrees, loved her old job at a public school in the Himalayan foothills. But then she did what millions of Indian women do every year – gave up her career when she got married and had children.

“The idea of not earning pinches me the most when I have to ask for the smallest of things,” said Negi, who briefly tried home tutoring before the birth of her second child led her to give up work altogether.

“Even if I have to ask my husband, it is still asking someone else,” she said in New Delhi at an office of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a union group that helps women find work.

Negi’s experience is common in India, where women have been dropping out of the workforce even at a time of strong growth in Asia’s third-biggest economy.

The country is set to become the world’s most populous as the United Nations forecasts its population to touch 1.43 billion on April 14, overtaking China on that day.

Economists say that means India, home to the highest number of working-age people, must not only create more jobs to keep its world-beating growth on track, but also foster employment conditions favourable to women.

Less than a third of Indian women are working or actively seeking work, data shows, despite progress such as better educational attainment, improved health, falling fertility rates and more women-friendly labour policies.