Imagine a room full of university students in India: young men and women sitting shoulder to shoulder in equal numbers. Fast forward 10 years: 8 out of 10 of those men are likely to be active in the workforce compared to only 3 out of 10 women. This example illustrates one of the great conundrums of India’s female labor force: a low and rapidly declining participation rate—even before the COVID-19 pandemic—despite economic growth and women’s increasing enrollment across all levels of education, and in particular tertiary education (sometimes referred to as post-secondary education; see Figure 1).

Young women in India face numerous and intersecting challenges that affect their workforce participation, chief among them, the triple impact of a skills deficit, a network gap, and restrictive gender norms.

Skills deficit: Tertiary curricula rarely address 8 of the 10 skills employers today value most, which relate to problem-solving, self-management, and working with people, and they are seldom built through traditional instructional approaches in classrooms.

Network gap: Women in India tend to have small professional networks because social norms restrict them from engaging freely. A lack of role models can limit aspirations, lower beliefs in personal abilities, and reduce women’s likelihood of breaking gender stereotypes and entering academic or career paths where they do not see other women.

Restrictive gender norms: Social norms defining a woman’s role as primarily that of a caregiver are one of the main factors discouraging female labor force participation (FLFP) in India. In urban areas, women’s participation in the labor force drops off in their early to mid-20s—when marriage- and family-related responsibilities tend to increase—yet unlike in other countries, especially in urban areas, only few women in India reenter the workforce later.

Read the full article about digital earning for women in India by Arundhuti Gupta at Brookings.