Many people dream of moving to the big city in search of better work. They believe they will get a high‑paying job, modern offices and a chance to use their skills. But the reality can be different for everyone.
The government's latest report titled 'Labour Market Dynamics in Million-plus Cities' brings that out. It covers 46 municipal corporations across India with populations above one million. It includes labour force participation, unemployment rates, workplace types, and much more.
Men and women do not experience these labour markets in the same way. The opportunities that seem open and abundant for men can be narrow, unpredictable, or absent for women.
Manufacturing Shapes New Pathways
We can see gender balance in the manufacturing sector. Across million‑plus cities, 22% of all employed men and 20% of all employed women work in manufacturing - each calculated within their own group of workers. Adding up all sectors will be 100 for each, men and women.
But as we see this data city by city, this parity disappears. Some cities absorb women into manufacturing at extraordinary levels. Take Ludhiana. 48% of employed women work in factories. The city even employs 56% of men in the manufacturing sector alone. Surat is even more striking: manufacturing accounts for 55% of employed women, slightly more than men. Manufacturing also forms a substantial part of women's employment in Indore, Rajkot, and Faridabad. On the other end, cities like Ranchi, Patna, Prayagraj, and Kota barely employ women in manufacturing.
Manufacturing, thus, is not a single story. Textile and garment hubs have created space for women, but engineering and metal clusters have not. In several Hindi‑belt cities, women's presence in factories remains thin.
Construction & Transportation Are Male-Dominated
Construction is one of the largest employers of men in many cities. Women are almost absent. Cities like Dhanbad, Jabalpur, Visakhapatnam, Vadodara, and Srinagar show high male dependence on construction but negligible female participation. Physical labour, safety concerns, informal hiring networks, and gendered norms restrict women's entry in the sector.
The transport and storage sector shows the same pattern. There, safety concerns, night shifts and long-distance travel keep women out.
Education: Women's Way To A Formal Job
Education is the best example of women's dominance. Across million‑plus cities, 12% of all employed women work in education, compared to around 2% of men. Prayagraj stands out. 45% of employed women work in the education sector, the highest female share in any city-sector combination.
In several northern cities such as Prayagraj, Patna, Lucknow, and Meerut, teaching is often the only formal pathway available to educated women. That signals a lack of safe and socially acceptable job opportunities for women in these cities. The healthcare sector shows a similar tilt.
Gender-Balanced Sector Of Modern Times
The combined cluster of IT, financial services, real estate, and professional/scientific activities accounts for 20% of male employment and 19% of female employment, the most balanced of any major sector.
Bengaluru stands out. The IT sector alone employs 23% of women, compared to 20% of men. Cities like Pune, Chennai and Hyderabad give women ample job opportunities in professional services.
Sector Of Last Resort
Women also dominate domestic work. About 13% of all employed women work as paid household workers, cooks, cleaners, and caretakers. The true share is likely higher because much of this work is informal and undercounted. In cities like Kolkata, Pune, and Nagpur, domestic work becomes a major source of livelihood: more than one‑fourth of all employed women depend on it. These women usually work in households where a woman is employed in the formal sector, or in affluent homes where she does not work at all.
Formal Employment & Risk Of Shocks
A surprising finding is that about 65% of employed women are in regular salaried work, compared to 56% of men. But this applies only to the small fraction of women who work at all, since the women's worker population ratio is just 25.5%. That means, when women work, they choose the formal sector.
As India grows and formalises, it expands workplace options for women. It also creates a vulnerability. Formal jobs are the first to go during downturns, and women face a higher risk of losing them because men have more fallback options. Men shift across sectors with ease or move to other cities for work. Patriarchal norms give men full mobility. A man in Prayagraj who loses a job can search in Lucknow or Delhi and move his family with him. Women rarely have that freedom.
When women lose formal jobs, the path forward is narrow. They enter informal work if the household needs income, or they exit the labour force if the family can manage without their earnings. Also, the informal jobs are often temporary, unsafe, or socially unacceptable for women in many parts of India, making it difficult for women to become financially independent.
Final Take
Policies aimed at industrial reform don't consider differences in how men and women participate across sectors. Men have a wider employment base. Women's work is far more conditional - rooted in manufacturing in some cities, limited to education, health, and public‑facing roles in others, modern services in a few Southern and Western cities and pushed into domestic service where broader opportunities don't exist.
Fallback options for women are also poorly addressed. Small but crucial things such as women's safety, predictable hours, basic protections, and clear contracts in informal work could decide whether women stay in the labour force or drop out. When these supports are missing, even minor shocks push women out faster than men.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of NDTV Profit or its affiliates. Readers are advised to conduct their own research or consult a qualified professional before making any investment or business decisions. NDTV Profit does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of the information presented in this article.
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