Higher Care-Giving Duties Affect Women Labour Force Participation In India: Goldman Sachs
Indian women spend eight times more hours on domestic duties and caregiving daily than men.
In India, women's participation is significantly below men's compared to other developed or emerging economies because of the higher share in caregiving duties, Goldman Sachs said in its India Womenomics Report.
The overall representation of women across MSCI India companies was at 16% in 2023, which is quite lower than in other developed and emerging countries.
Representation at the executive level was only 8%, and at board levels it is at 18%. It's important to note that in the latter segment, regulatory requirement is driving the higher representation, Goldman Sachs said.
At sector level, information technology is employing most women employees in India.
Indian women spend eight times more hours in domestic duties and caregiving on a daily basis. Goldman Sachs said citing Times Use Survey 2024 that women in India spend five hours on domestic and care-giving services while men only spent 37 minutes.
Understanding Indian Women's Challenges
Other reasons for Indian women's lower participations are mostly horizontal such as early marriage, social norms restricting job options, rising crime against women, and a lack of a robust public transport connectivity, Goldman Sachs said.
It is imperative for India to increase work opportunities for women to reap the full benefit of the favourable demographic dividend. In the next two decades, a large share of the population will enter their working years making India's age-dependency ratio the lowest among major economies.
Goldman Sachs in its India Womenomics report suggested building a care economy to support women in dedicating more time to work. A study by the Confederation of Indian Industry estimates the economic value of females' domestic and care work to be 15–17% of GDP.
International Labour Organization report said that public investment amounting to 2% of GDP in care economy could result in over 1.1 crore jobs in India. Out of these jobs, 43–74% women can do it, Goldman Sachs said.
However, the picture is not so bleak because of numerous steps taken to improve the quality of basic amenities, increase literacy, and women's participation in India. The share of self-employed women is on the rise, the report said.
The share of self-employed women has risen to 31% in 2023–24 from 2017–18. Goldman Sachs also surveyed 10,000 women programmes to understand why female entrepreneurship is rising. Improvements in training and programmes are cited the most as reason. Meanwhile, access to funding remained a key barrier.
