India’s labour market story currently comes wrapped in optimistic headlines. The economy added 83 million jobs between 2021–22 and 2023–24. Women’s labour force participation has also risen. At first glance, this looks like a long-awaited employment breakthrough.
But the details tell a more complicated story.
Of those 83 million new jobs, around 40 million were in agriculture. Women accounted for a striking 38 million of them. That means a large part of the recent rise in female employment has come from a sector known for low incomes, informal work, seasonal instability, and weak productivity.
So yes, more women may be working. But many are working where earnings are low and security is weaker.
And too many women are not counted among the “unemployed” at all.
WHEN WOMEN DO NOT SHOW UP IN JOBLESS DATA
One of the sharpest insights from the Azim Premji State of Working India report is this: unemployment data often captures men better than women.
To be counted as unemployed, a person must not have work and must also be actively seeking it.
Men without jobs are more likely to report themselves as unemployed. Women, far more often, are recorded as “out of the labour force” (OLF). That means they are neither employed nor officially searching.
Data shows that this may happen because women spend a large chunk of daily time on unpaid domestic and care work. Other reasons could include safety concerns, social restrictions, discouragement after repeated rejection, or lack of suitable jobs nearby.
The result is serious. A large number of women who may want paid work, or could work under the right conditions, vanish statistically.
Men appear jobless. But women too often are simply not recorded in unemployment data.
In the two graphs below, compare how education and employment trends change for young women and men aged 25 to 29 over time. A striking difference is that the men’s chart shows very little movement into the out of labour force (OLF) category, while the women’s chart shows far more.
For men, unemployment falls over time while employment rises steadily. Many eventually enter some form of work.
For women, the path is very different.
Initially, unemployment is visible. But as age rises, unemployment declines mainly because more women move out of the labour force, while employment more or less stagnates after around age 23.
That means women are not necessarily finding jobs. Many are simply leaving the search.
Notice how there is no OLF band for men in the figure above.
This is one reason female unemployment figures can look lower than the real level of distress.
THE JOBS BEING CREATED MATTER
Employment growth alone does not reveal quality.
Between 1993 and 2017, agricultural employment had steadily declined, especially among younger workers and women. That was usually seen as movement away from low-productivity work.
But after 2017, the trend reversed.
For women:
- Agricultural employment among young women grew around 13% annually
- Among older women, it grew nearly 20% annually
For men, agricultural employment largely stagnated.
This matters because agriculture often absorbs distress labour when better jobs are scarce.
In plain terms, the rise in women taking up agriculture jobs shows that many women may be entering this work for survival, and the overall employment boost picture for women isn’t a rosy one.
EDUCATED WOMEN FACE A CRISIS
The report also shows that education does not guarantee smoother entry into work.
In 2023, fewer than 1 in 5 women (less than 20%) aged 20 to 29 were graduates. But among unemployed women of the same age, nearly 3 in 5 (almost 60%) were graduates.
In simple terms, educated young women were far more likely to show up in unemployment data than their overall share suggests.
Just like the rise in women taking up agriculture jobs in recent years, this too suggests a painful mismatch — women are gaining education faster, but suitable jobs are not expanding at the same pace.
Graduate unemployment is reported as particularly high among Muslims, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes, pointing to overlapping barriers of gender plus social disadvantage.
Also, data from the central government’s Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) shows that while most employed graduate women have a salaried income, unpaid work has also increased in recent years.
WORKING DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN EARNING
A significant share of women’s employment is concentrated in:
- self-employment
- unpaid family work
- home-based work
- own-account work (OAW: subcategory of self-employed; running own business or farm without hired employees)
These categories count as employment. But they do not always mean stable income, independence, or career growth.
A woman helping on a family farm, stitching garments from home, or selling small goods without staff may technically be employed, while still earning little and lacking benefits, insurance, or long-term security.
PLFS data represented in the Azim Premji State of Working India report show that from 2017 to 2024, there has been almost a four-fold increase in the number of women in own-account work.
That is how headline employment gains can hide economic vulnerability.
WOMEN CARRY A SECOND SHIFT EVERY DAY
The report’s time-use data explains a major hidden barrier to women seeking or getting paid employment: unpaid domestic and care work.
Across age groups, women spend 2x to 4x more time on domestic work and care work, both of which are unpaid, than men. On the flip side, men spend 3-4 times more minutes in paid employment than women across different age groups.
Among those aged 25 to 29, men spend an average 52 minutes daily on unpaid domestic and care work. Women spend 450 minutes. The gap is 398 minutes or six extra hours spent on unpaid responsibilities every day.
When paid work must compete with caregiving, household labour, safety concerns, and poor job options, many women are pushed out before their careers even begin.
This helps explain why millions of women do not show up as unemployed. They disappear from the workforce first.
The problem is not motivation. It is the lack of time, energy, and opportunity.
YOUNGER WOMEN ARE TRYING NEW PATHS
The report does note some shifts.
Among older women, non-agricultural work remains concentrated in traditional sectors like health, education, and community services.
Among younger women, manufacturing emerged as a major employer till 2017, before slowing later. Textile and apparel work played a large role. Custom tailoring alone reportedly rose from 3 million to nearly 9 million women workers between 2018 and 2023.
Some highly educated young women are also entering online platform work and freelancing. For some, it funds studies or exam preparation. For others, it avoids unsafe commutes or exploitative workplaces.
But platform work often brings:
- irregular tasks
- strict ratings systems
- unpaid waiting time
- no benefits
- no security
So even newer forms of work can remain precarious.
Another notable shift (as seen in the graphs below) is among young women aged 15 to 19, where rising participation in education corresponds with a fall in out of labour force (OLF) numbers. In simple terms, more girls are staying in school instead of entering work early, which may improve their chances of better jobs later.
A LABOUR MARKET SPLIT IN TWO
India’s female employment story is no longer one single trend. It is increasingly two very different realities unfolding at the same time.
At one end is a smaller but growing group of educated women entering newer sectors such as IT, business services, finance, modern manufacturing, and professional services.
A LABOUR MARKET SPLIT IN TWO
India’s female employment story is no longer one single trend. It is increasingly two very different realities unfolding at the same time.
At one end is a smaller but growing group of educated women entering newer sectors such as IT, business services, finance, modern manufacturing, and professional services.
The shift is visible in the report’s long-term data. In 1983, nearly 60% of non-agricultural employment among young graduate women was concentrated in just two traditional sectors: education and public administration. By 2023, that dominance had weakened sharply, with computer and information services and business services emerging as major employers.
At the same time (as seen in the graph below), several traditionally female-dominated sectors now account for a smaller share of young women’s employment, showing that many younger women are moving away from older occupational tracks toward newer industries.
Younger women have also entered manufacturing in larger numbers than earlier generations, especially in textiles and apparel. Custom tailoring alone rose from 3 million women workers to nearly 9 million between 2018 and 2023, the report notes.
At the other end, however, a far larger group remains concentrated in agriculture, unpaid family work, home-based labour, own-account work, low-paid informal jobs, or outside the labour force altogether.
One side offers salaries, mobility, and a degree of independence. The other often offers survival, irregular earnings, and little room to grow.
This divide matters because headline employment numbers combine both groups into one statistic. But they are living very different economic lives.
India’s challenge is not only creating more jobs for women. It is narrowing the gulf between these two worlds.
THE BIG QUESTION
Are women stepping away from work by choice?
Or are many being edged out by a labour market that still fails to offer enough safe, flexible, nearby, and decently paid jobs?
The report points strongly toward the second explanation.
When care work consumes hours each day, when secure jobs remain scarce, when long commutes feel unsafe, when wages are too low to justify the burden, and when educated women still struggle to find openings, leaving the workforce can look less like a decision and more like the only workable option.
That has consequences far beyond individual households.
If millions of women remain excluded from productive work, India loses income, talent, consumption power, and one of its biggest economic advantages during a narrowing demographic window.
India’s missing women are not missing by accident.
They are missing from the count, missing from opportunity, and too often missing from the jobs that could transform their futures.