It is a fact that India’s female workforce participation has been among the lowest across the globe for decades. India’s female workforce even before the outbreak of the COVID-19 has been invisible, underpaid and underprotected. The female labour participation in India was 16.1 % as per the recent quarterly bulletin (July – September 2020) of Periodic Labour Survey conducted by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. 

Around 120 million workers lost their jobs overnight in March 2020 when one of the strictest lockdowns in the world was imposed in India after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. Majority of these workers were from the informal sector and half of them were women. According to a report published by Azim Premji University, ‘State of Working India 2021 – One Year of Covid-19’, during the lockdown and the months that followed, out of the total percentage of working men and women, 47% women permanently lost their jobs compared to just 7% men who lost their jobs permanently. 

The female workforce is largely employed in the informal sector and the sector has been among the worst hit by the pandemic. Women in the informal sector work without any written job contracts or benefits. The pandemic put them at risk with job losses, reduced wages and financial insecurity. As per the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation 13.8 % of microenterprises in India are owned by women and majority of these businesses are self financed and operational in sectors like beauty, education, tourism, food, retail etc. These sectors have been pillaged the worst by the pandemic. A survey conducted by LEAD at Krea University in four states covering over 2,000 women-led non-farm micro and small enterprises, showed that businesses have reported a 72.5% drop in revenue since the onset of the pandemic.

Not just the informal workforce, women in the formal workforce faced similar adversities. As per a data released by EPFO, women’s share in payroll additions immediately decreased in the months of June to August, post lockdown. 17.1 percent of women were unemployed as opposed to 10.9 percent of men. 

In India, where inequalities against women are intuitively practised, the disparity has only worsened. According to an analysis, ‘COVID-19 and gender equality: Countering the regressive effects’, conducted by McKinsey Global Institute in the year 2020, women are more vulnerable and susceptible to COVID-19-related economic effects because of the already existing gender inequalities.

As per a 2019 survey conducted by National Sample Survey Office, women in India undertake 10 times more domestic work as opposed to men. Job loss, social restrictions, and  work from home flexibility has increased their unpaid work and has put extra burden on women through increased domestic responsibilities, household chores and child care demands. As per the India Working Survey conducted in the states of Karnataka and Rajasthan, time spent by working women on domestic chores went up from 20% to almost 62%  in Karnataka and 12% to 58% in Rajasthan. Around 80% of women in the corporate sector complained of increased domestic responsibilities and a third of them were willing to quit their work altogether.

India ranks 112th out of the 153 countries mapped in the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Gender Gap Index, that uses the pre-pandemic data. For a country that has women as 48% of its population, they contribute only 18% to the country’s economic output. As per World Bank’s estimates, engaging even just 50% of women in active economics in India would result in a 1.5% boost in GDP percentage per year. India dreams to become a coveted $5 trillion economy by 2025, but if half of its population is not an equal part of the equation, the trillion economy dream will never see fruition.

The need of the hour is to ensure that India’s economic recovery plan is gender responsive. It is imperative that initiatives to strengthen platforms that empower women, provide equal opportunities, and alleviate the burden of unpaid household and care work is focused on. There needs to be an introduction of gender-neutral formalisation at a greater scale. Till the time gender lens is missing from policymaking and developmental initiatives, all progress made will be immobile and at an impasse.