CMIE data: Urban female workforce participation rate down to its lowest in November since 2016

The number of women subscribers for the month of September stood at 2,72,395 out of the total of 10,47,167

Urban female labour participation rate in India fell to its lowest, at 6.9 percent in November, since 2016, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) said.

This drop in the rate defies expectation, as urban women are better educated with more job opportunities, it said.

The data from CMIE's Consumer Pyramids Household Survey shows urban women participate much lesser in the workforce than rural women. In 2019-20, female labour participation rate (FLPR) among urban women was 9.7 per cent against 11.3 per cent among rural women.

The report also stated that in April 2020 the urban FLPR fell to 7.35 percent, which was over 200 basis points lower than its average of 9.7 percent in 2019-20.  In October 2020, female labour participation in urban India dropped to 7.2 per cent  and further to 6.9 percent in November.

"Unlike many other indicators, the urban FLPR did not recover. On the contrary, it effectively, continued to slide," CMIE said.

In April 2020, women suffered 13.9 percent of the job losses.  “By November 2020, men recovered most of their lost jobs but women were less fortunate with 49% of the job losses by November were of women,” CMIE said.

"Although the labour participation rate for women is very low at less than 11 per cent compared to 71 per cent for men, they face a much higher unemployment rate of 17 per cent compared to 6 per cent for men," CMIE said.

According to CMIE,  67 per cent of all men of working age are employed, only 9 per cent of all women of working age are employed. This gap between men and women in India’s workforce is the potential labour available to deploy productively in economic activities.

Further, CMIE also observed that the impact of economic shock on younger women is more than the older women. The participation rate in the workforce of younger women fell to 9.7 percent during the pandemic after reaching a high of 14.9 percent in end of 2019.