Women Empowerment : Making India Viksit By 2047
A new government will soon be taking up the challenge of making India viksit by 2047.
- With women lagging behind on several parameters of well-being in the country today, empowering them economically lies at the heart of the challenge we face in transforming India into a developed country.
- As history has shown, women are empowered when they step out of their homes and enter market work only when their education levels rise and “good” jobs appear.
- Improving the value of investments in women’s human capital, and at a low cost, is our best bet for engendering gender parity and creating a “developed” society.”
- India’s overall employment rate has historically been around 50 per cent of the working-age population much lower than in China (almost 70 per cent) or even our neighbour, Bangladesh (about 55 per cent), according to ILO and World Bank estimates.
- Bringing more working-age population into the productive workforce is critical to achieving a high GDP growth rate.
- Amongst the main reasons for the significantly lower labour force participation (LFP) rate in India, is women’s low LFP (currently around 25 per cent).
- According to World Bank estimates, Increasing women’s LFP to 50 per cent of labour force will bring India closer to 8 per cent GDP growth rates and a five-trillion dollar economy by 2030.
