ICRIER: women's workforce doubles to 201 million, but unpaid care gap stays

The number of women working in India nearly doubled between 2017-18 and 2025, from 104 million to 201 million, but most of the gain came from farm work, self-employment and unpaid work in family enterprises, and women's load of unpaid housework and care barely eased, according to a report by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). The report, "The Participation Paradox: Women's Work and Time-Use in India, 2017-18 to 2025", was released at the end of October 2026. It draws on the government's Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for 2017-18 and 2025 and its Time Use Survey for 2019 and 2024.

For years, India's low share of women in paid work was one of the most discussed puzzles in its economy. The headline numbers now look much better. ICRIER's point is that a higher count does not by itself mean a better working life. Much of the new work is in agriculture, small self-run activities or unpaid help in a family farm or shop, which brings little or no income of a woman's own, little security and few benefits. The share of women in regular salaried jobs, the kind that usually come with a fixed wage and some social security, has actually fallen.

The time-use data explain why. Time-use surveys record how people spend each part of their day, including cooking, cleaning and caring for children and older relatives, work that is unpaid and often invisible in job statistics. In 2024, women still spent close to four hours a day more than men on unpaid domestic work, about the same as in 2019, and the gap in care work grew. When a woman takes on paid or family-enterprise work on top of this, the result is a double shift. That is the paradox in the report's title: more women are counted as working, but their days have not been redesigned to make room for it.

This is also why the hours data matter. Shorter working weeks, especially for rural women, suggest that many women fit paid or family work around household duties, in low-intensity, part-time patterns, rather than holding full-time jobs. The six in 10 women outside the workforce who point to childcare and household duties show where the main barrier lies.

The authors argue that policy should aim for productive, secure and better-paid work for women rather than simply higher participation rates. Practical steps often discussed in this context include affordable childcare and crèches near workplaces, flexible working arrangements, and sharing of care work within families.

Short-term: The report adds evidence to debates on childcare provision, crèche rules at workplaces and the design of schemes for women's employment.

Long-term: Unless the unpaid care load is shared or supported, gains in women's employment are likely to stay concentrated in low-paid, low-hour work, limiting women's incomes and financial independence.

Who is affected: Working women and those who want to work, especially in rural India; families that depend on women's unpaid care; employers; and policymakers designing employment and childcare schemes.

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