There are 149.8 million women employees, out of which 121.8 million are in rural areas and 28 million in urban areas, per Census 2011. Yet, ladies 18 solely eighteen.6 percent of the population operating or looking for work, whereas the number is 55.6 percent for men as of 2018-19.

This is the lowest the female labor force participation rate (LFPR) has fallen since Independence. The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic only worsened matters with the soaring state in sectors ¬like education, domestic work, tourism, restaurants, and care work for the young and elderly, where a high number of women are employed.

Both the disease and the economic shock hit some sections tougher than others, exposing the pre-existing fault lines. one of these inequalities is the gender gap in terms of paid and unpaid work.

Women have experienced an increase in household chores and unpaid care work, an increase in the risk of violence against ladies, reduced health and nutrition outcomes, and reduced economic opportunities. and women each man and ladies were hit by the financial condition, men have seen a steady rise in job recovery.

Only 16 percent of women employed in December 2019 were able to keep their jobs during and after the internment as critical 60 percent men, according to a recent working paper by the Centre for Science and the, a Delhi-based non-profit organization. and also the major brunt of this was borne by urban women.

Of the 6.7 million women displaced from the labor force by November 2020, 2.3 million were rural women whereas 4.4 million were urban. This makes revealed worse because the National Sample Survey unconcealed that the decline in women’s LFPR was in rural areas not urban.

Over the years, there has been a higher rate of migration of women for employment and business from rural to urban areas (from 47 % in 2001 to 58 % in 2011), in line with the Census. ladies are seeking and finding a lot of opportunities in urban areas, particularly the informal sector.

One of the foremost disturbing effects of the pandemic has been on the employment of young women. Young women in their 20s were just emerging from demonetization in 2016 and the introduction of goods and services tax in 2017; their workforce participation rate climbed up to 14.7 percent, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.