Women empowerment improved, but ground to cover: Economic Survey

Though female participation in the labour force has increased to 37% in 2022-23 from 23.3% in 2017-18, the Economic Survey 2023-24 has pointed out that nearly three-fourth of the women workers are engaged in agriculture related work. The need of the hour, says the survey, is to tap into higher value-addition sectors suitable to the needs and qualifications of the rural female workforce, such as agro-processing. “To truly realise the gender dividend of workforce participation by an increasingly educated and skilled female population, proper development of the care economy is essential and long pending,” points out the Survey.

One of the case-studies of economic empowerment of women cited in the Economic Survey is that of the Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu. The district had high incidence of child marriage, prenatal sex selection, a low child-sex ratio (of 920, compared to the state average of 946) and low female literacy (at 65%). However, the setup of manufacturing units in electronics, mobile assembly, electric scooters and footwear has changed the narrative. “It has favoured large-scale employment of women, as manufacturers find female workers to be more productive and dexterous. This triggered a mindset shift as households who considered girls a burden now consider them as breadwinners, besides bolstering Government welfare efforts towards female empowerment. This has resulted in a declining incidence of child marriage and school dropout rates of girls, a rise in the average age of marriage, coupled with a surge in female enrolment in polytechnic institutes,” says the Survey.   

Access to financial services improves women’s control over household resources and is a gateway to accessing credit and insurance, says the Survey. The PM Jan Dhan Yojana has facilitated the opening of 52.3 crore bank accounts, of which 55.6% of account holders are women as of May 2024. This is accompanied by a rise in average deposits by nearly four times, from ₹1,065 in March 2015 to ₹4,398 in May 2024.

There has been an increase in women entrepreneurs through Start-up and Stand-Up India. Around 68% of the loans have been sanctioned to women entrepreneurs under PM Mudra Yojana, and 77.7% of the beneficiaries under Stand-Up India are women, as of May 2024. More than 53% of the Prime Minister’s Rural Digital Literacy Campaign (PMGDISHA) beneficiaries are women.  According to Bain and Co. there are roughly 13.5-15.7 million women-owned businesses in India, making up 17-20% per cent of the country’s total enterprises.

However, the Economic Survey also points out there is still a lot of ground to be covered in terms of economic empowerment of women. “Although the social acceptance of women breaking into traditionally male domains such as flying a fighter plane, running a unicorn company, or leading a district/department has been rising with such news being celebrated, much scope remains in enhancing asset ownership among women and normalising female property rights. Besides the intrinsic moral worth of equality, female ownership of land/assets is crucial for their financial security and utilisation of economic opportunities, enabling rural women’s control over resources for farming and related loans and household well-being through family-oriented rather than personal use of resources,” says the Survey.

In spite of women-friendly legislation on succession, research estimates that only 14% of landowners in nine sample states of India were women. Even landowning women are found to face multiple issues, such as limited access to single titles and smaller and inferior quality land.