Celebrating Women’s Work: Workforce Participation Insights from Small Cities

Sapna Sharma, a resident of Hapur, is a first-generation degree-holder who has established her entrepreneurial endeavor of selling Petha, a traditional Indian sweet. Women-owned businesses in smaller Indian cities, like Sharma’s, are utilizing the MeraBizNet portal to receive mentorship & training to scale-up. Launched in 2023, this portal has partnered with credit agency, Cibil & the German government to extend support to such working-women.

The career engagement platform, HerKey had reported a 58% year-on-year rise in registrations from women professionals seeking to return to work in Q1 2021, with 65% increase in total registrations from Tier 2 & 3 cities. Such a trend indicates the growing presence of women from smaller cities in India’s workforce.

Women are also participating in varied sectors & opting for unconventional roles according to Apna, a professional networking platform. In 2022, there was a 34% rise in women applicants for labor-intensive roles such as delivery, lab technicians, factory workers & drivers. Challenging the traditional gender roles, Meenakshi Devi became the 1st e-rickshaw driver in Chenab Valley’s Bhanderwah town. To support her family during financial turmoil & her husband’s illness, Devi defied odds despite facing society’s skepticism for taking up a non-traditional profession.

In the age of AI Technology, women are also moving ahead with the times. NextWealth is a prominent company in this sphere, with established centers in Mallasamudram, Chittoor, Hubli, Bhilai, Mysore, Vellore, Pondicherry, Salem, Jaipur & Udaipur. NextWealth has employed nearly 5,000 individuals, out of which 60% are women. Contributing significantly in the tasks of data labeling & annotation, women workers in this sector are growing in numbers.

Transforming the country's socio-economic landscape, women from smaller cities have been enabled by a multitude of factors: the proliferation of flexible work options post COVID-19, emergence of supportive platforms online, training programs & sensitization initiatives, along with the advent of technology-driven sectors. While such tech developments & workplace enablers have been significant for women’s participation in the workforce, the Top Cities for Women in India (TCWI) Index emphasizes the role of investment by city & state authorities for women’s sustained employment.

The 2nd edition of TCWI ranked cities based on their inclusivity for women across 3 parameters: social inclusion, workplace inclusion, & citizen experience. Among cities with a population of less than 1 million, 8 out of the top 10 were in South India - Tiruchirappalli, Vellore, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Salem, Erode, Tiruppur, & Puducherry. Historical & social factors, along with enabling government policies of these cities contributed to their gender-progressive living environments. By utilizing the Periodic Labour Force Survey, National Census, & crime records, along with Avtar Group’s primary research on women's employment, the TCWI index findings highlight the importance of supportive city infrastructure for healthcare, education, childcare, & travel, for retaining women in the workforce.

In the era of contractual work, Urban Company (UC) - a home services platform has become the biggest employer of women in India’s online gig-economy. One-third of UC’s contract workforce are women, for whom it has symbolized a ticket to financial independence & social mobility. For women like Nishi Dhillon from Ambala, it also represents an opportunity to move away from their oppressive, caste-based work as reported by Rest Of World. However, there have been several instances of protest against UC’s working conditions, with contractual workers raising concerns over working hours & alleged unfair treatment.

In comparison to gig-work, women’s participation in MSMEs is considerably low. A survey by BYST found that 85% of women entrepreneurs struggled to obtain loans from nationalized banks. Challenges like limited access to finance, property ownership & lack of collateral have hindered women’s participation. To address the barriers in women’s work participation, gender-responsive policies become essential. Financial literacy training, increasing representation of women in leadership & supervisory roles, implementing work-integrated educational programs, & building supportive infrastructure are a few crucial steps towards fostering a more inclusive workforce.

Does your city have a gender-inclusive workforce? What measures do you think your city can take to improve women’s work participation?