Women's participation in the Ayush services sector exceeds 50% in organised segments but not in the sector overall. Analyse the reasons and suggest measures to formalise Ayush employment.

The RIS Ayush Service Sector Report (2026) finds that women make up 43% of the Ayush services workforce. In organised segments their share is above half: spas and wellness (>60%), educational institutes (58%), day-care centres (57%) and hospitals (53%) [1]. The gap shows that the sector's largest and least formal base employs fewer women.

Reasons for the gap

• Structural composition: over 1 million of the 1.76 million livelihoods are in local and standalone clinics, which also earn 43.9% of revenue [1]. These small, owner-run units employ fewer women, which pulls the overall share down.
• Pull of formal jobs: only 18.2% of working women held regular salaried jobs in 2025 [2]. Hospitals, institutes and wellness centres offer exactly these jobs, so women cluster there.
• Work–care fit: 44.5% of women outside the labour force cite childcare or homemaking duties [3]. Day-care and wellness jobs have fixed hours and are close to home, which suits them better than running a clinic.
• Gendered care work: therapy and wellness roles are seen as "care" work. Worldwide, women are 67% of health and care workers but earn 24% less than men [4], so a high share does not mean equality.
• Data blind spot: the 43% figure counts heads only. There is no data on pay, rank or ownership, which is why Parliament's Standing Committee asked for standardised data collection [5].

Measures to formalise Ayush employment

• Measure the workforce: the Ministry of Ayush and MoSPI should run an annual survey that breaks the workforce down by gender, role and pay [5].
• Register clinics: bring standalone clinics under minimum standards, building on practitioner regulation under the NCISM Act, 2020 [6].
• Certify wellness workers: spa therapists and yoga instructors fall outside practitioner registers [6]. Skill certification would give them portable credentials and stronger bargaining power.
• Audit pay: add pay and role questions to future RIS rounds to test whether the 24% gap seen in health and care [4] also exists in Ayush.
• Support women owners and social security: give women-led clinics credit and incubation, and extend social-security coverage to wellness and clinic staff.

Organised Ayush segments already offer women a better entry point than informal work. Formalising the clinic base and wellness jobs, guided by data and credentials, can turn the sector's growth into decent work. This would advance SDG 5 (gender equality) and SDG 8 (decent work) on the path to Viksit Bharat@2047.