The managing director of International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva has said at a recent event that women’s participation in India’s labour force is quite low.
She said one of the reasons was that women in India don’t feel safe to go to the academic institutions or to the workplace.
The event, “Women, Work, and Leadership: One-on-One Conversation”, was held at IMF headquarters in Washington on October 15. In a recent study made by audit and consultancy firm, Deloitte, in March this year, it was found that the women labour force participation in India declined from 36.7 per cent in 2005 to 26 per cent in 2018.
The reasons for such a decline were lack of quality education and socio-economic barriers, which created hindrance in accessing the already limited opportunities by women in India.
Expressing concern over the issue, Georgieva said that the scenario can be changed if serious initiatives are taken. The Deloitte report – “Empowering Women & Girls in India for the Fourth Industrial Revolution” – said that around 95 per cent or roughly 195 million Indian women are employed either in unorganised sector or in unpaid labour. The report also suggested that the educational system in India needs to be strengthened by the introduction of digital mode of teaching and compulsorily including STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in the curriculum being taught in schools. This will enable women to make independent career choices for themselves and expose them to a number of new career choices, the report said. It also laid emphasis on the re-skilling of women in India.
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