"Rising female labour force participation in India conceals a deterioration in the quality of women's work." Critically examine this statement with reference to recent PLFS data.

The female Labour Force Participation Rate (usual status) rose from 23.3% in 2017-18 to 41.7% in 2023-24 [3]. The number of working women nearly doubled to 201 million by 2025 [1]. However, the type of work women have entered shows that the headline gain is largely a story of informality, though not entirely one.

Evidence supporting the statement

• Self-employment dominates: Self-employed women's share of working women rose from 51.9% to 67.4% between 2017-18 and 2023-24 [2]. It was still 64.2% in PLFS 2025 [4]. Such work usually means low earnings and no social security.
• Unpaid family work: PLFS counts unpaid helpers in household enterprises as "employed." The ILO found that almost two-thirds of the jobs added after 2019 were self-employment, and unpaid women family workers were the largest group within it [5].
• Reverse structural transformation: Rural women in crop and animal production rose from 54 million to over 100 million. Over the same period, rural men's share in agriculture fell from 54.1% to 47.2% [1]. This is the feminisation of agriculture.
• Double burden: Women spend 289 minutes a day on unpaid domestic work, against 88 minutes for men [6]. This limits them to work they can do near home.
• Weak protection: Self-employed women bore the brunt of inadequate social protection during COVID-19 [7].

Counter-view: real, if partial, progress

• Better measurement: Much of the rise records farm and livestock work that earlier went uncounted [1]. Work that is counted can enter gender budgeting.
• Economic value: Unpaid farm work is productive work. Recognising it strengthens women's claims to land titles and credit.
• Early diversification: Women's self-employment share fell from 66.5% (2024) to 64.2% (2025) [4].
• Stagnation, not decline: Women already in work have not clearly lost ground. The new entrants have mostly joined at the bottom of the job ladder.

Way forward

• MoSPI should report paid and unpaid work separately in the headline Worker Population Ratio (WPR).
• Bring self-employed women under the Code on Social Security, 2020, and expand crèches to free women's care time [6].
• Organise DAY-NRLM women into cooperatives for collective bargaining and market access [7].

Overall, PLFS data largely support the statement. Women's work has grown in quantity but much less in quality, and some of the rise reflects better counting rather than new jobs. The next step is to turn counted work into decent work that is paid, protected and freely chosen, in line with SDG 5 and SDG 8 and the Constitution's commitment to equality of opportunity.