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Is Covid forcing women out of jobs in India?

India has a poor record of female participation in the workforce, and the pandemic appears to be making matters worse. What needs to change?

India has a poor record of women鈥檚 participation in the workforce. Less than a quarter of women were employed before the pandemic, ranking India among the bottom 10 countries in the world in terms of women鈥檚 employment.

But the pandemic is making matters worse, with more women than men dropping out of jobs. In fact, recent studies estimate that four out of five women are currently not working in India. The situation is said to be particularly stressful in the informal sector, which employs nearly 80% of all working women.

So, what is the ground reality? What do employment trends in urban and rural areas tell us? And what are the other challenges women face as extra chores are added during the pandemic?

In this edition of WorklifeIndia, we discuss if Covid is worsening the women鈥檚 employment crisis, and what can be done to make more Indian women join the paid workforce.

Presenter: Devina Gupta

Contributors: Neha Bagaria, founder & CEO, JobsForHer; Sabina Dewan, president & executive director, JustJobs; Soumya Kapoor Mehta, head, IWWAGE

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26 minutes

Last on

Sun 30 Aug 2020 16:06GMT

Image credit

Women who lost their jobs during lockdown seen selling food items under an initiative by the District Administration at Vasant Vihar on August 27, 2020 in New Delhi, India (Credit: Sanchit Khanna/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

Broadcasts

  • Fri 28 Aug 2020 14:32GMT
  • Sun 30 Aug 2020 16:06GMT

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