More women are self-employed in India, fewer hold salaried jobs

India’s workforce has fewer women than it did six years ago: no more than 18% in rural areas are employed, compared to 25% in 2011-12 and 14% in urban from 15%. However, in urban areas, the percentage of women in salaried jobs has increased from 35.6% in 2004 to 52.1% in 2017, but continue to be under-represented compared to their presence in self-employed or casual work, according to an analysis of the latest government employment data by Azim Premji University researchers.

Both men and women in rural and urban India are out of work, but there is a continuing decline of the number of women in the workforce, the latest government data, collected by the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2017-18, found.

Four months after a leaked newsbreak of national employment data revealed that India’s current unemployment rate was at a 45-year high, the government released the official PLFS report on May 31, 2019.