Labour Force Participation in India: An Analysis in Terms of GGGI and SDG India Index

Abstract

Purpose: The main purpose of this article is to find the gender gap in labour force participation among countries, especially India, and to compare India’s position with that of neighbouring countries. Gender gap in LFPR is also compared with GGGI ranking of countries. For this, two indices were used, one at the global level and the other at national level, GGGR 2025 and SDG India Index 2023-24.
Methodology: This is a narrative review article based on GGGR 2025 and SDG India Index 23-24. The GGGI ranking of South Asian countries and its indices and sub-indices of were analysed. The gender gap in the labour market at the global level has been analysed by taking the percentage difference in LFPR among males and females in each country. For this, a score of 10 was scaled up to a score out of 100 by multiplying the score by10.The country that reduced the difference to lowest possibly came as the number one country in LFPR ranking. The same method has been applied to find out the LFPR among males and females in south Asian countries. Performance of Indian states and UTs have been on the basis of data available in SDG India Index 2023-24.
Results: Both the indices pinpoint that India is far behind in closing overall gender gap and gender gap in LFPR. India’s position in terms of GGGI is 131 and in terms of gender gap in LFPR is 136 among 148 countries. Countries in first ten positions in closing gender gap in LFPR are from Sub-Saharan Africa. Study reveals that countries having high rank in GGGI is not at all good in reducing gender gap in LFPR. The same pattern was observed among the states and UTs in India. The states who are good in achieving overall gender equality are much behind the other states in terms of the closing gap in LFPR.
Conclusions: To conclude overall gender equality will not ensure gender equality in LFPR.This relation could be seen among the countries in the world and among the states in India. Countries with high female to male LFPR are not in the group of countries having high gender equality and findings of this study corroborate the findings of Claudia Goldin that countries which are poor exhibit high female labour force participation.