In order to transform into a developed nation by 2047, India needs to grow at around 8 percent. Dhruv Sharma, senior economist at the World Bank, said that such rapid growth can only be possible if women’s participation in the workforce increases.
At the launch of the World Bank’s India Development Update on October 3, Dhruv Sharma expressed that, “India has aspirations to become a high-income country by 2047. This will of course require a faster pace of growth; it is growing at around 6-6.5 percent. To get to a high-income country, you need to grow closer to 8 percent. And you can’t get there if a large part of your workforce—women—doesn’t participate.”
“So, in order for India to move from 6 percent to 8 percent and become a high-income country, you have to achieve a higher female labor force participation rate,” the economist added.
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The World Bank in its India Development Update Report stated that although there was an increase of 1.4 percentage points and 2.3 percentage points respectively in the period from January to March 2023 compared to the previous year in the ratio of male to female population (WPR ), the escalation in WPR for women is actually “primarily driven by an increase in women’s share of unpaid work,” according to data from the Periodic Labor Force Survey.
Additionally, the report also says that the quality of women’s jobs in the country is actually much lower than the quality of men’s jobs. Not to be outdone, the share of women in regular wage employment in urban regions is also declining.
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“According to data from the PLFS (2021-2022), women in India are almost three times less likely to be employed than men; even when employed, the average quality of their jobs is much lower (than) their male counterparts ,” the report said.
The World Bank Country Director, Auguste Kouame further stated that increasing the female labor force participation rate in India is actually a very key issue and the Bank is ready to work with all possible stakeholders to increase it from an average level of approximately 25 percent currently to an average level of 50 percent.
“We know from the data that there has been a lot of investment in the education of women and girls in India. India has achieved very good results … in fact, today there are more girls in universities than boys. So India has achieved very good results in the education of girls and women. Now it’s time for them to use their skills and brainpower to boost the economy to become a high-income country,” Kouame said.
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Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education