Women and work in rural India

In contrast to the global average of 48%, only 32.6% of the half-a-billion working-age women in India report to be working. It is puzzling that the rapid fertility transition, broad increases in female educational attainment, and substantial economic growth over the past two decades in India has been accompanied by a consistently low share of women working in urban areas and a real reduction in the share of women working in rural areas. This project aims to understand the determinants of women’s labour force participation and why it has been falling in rural India. Specifically, it investigates the importance of supply-side factors that influence women’s choice to work and their choices about how much to work.

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