The question of who will care for the child and the reasons why many women remain outside the labor market remain relevant. Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandben Patel believes that women can and should combine demanding careers with motherhood, provided they first become 'expert mothers' and master the home kitchen.
Data from the National Statistical Office shows that for many urban women, the main obstacles to obtaining paid employment are childcare responsibilities and household management, rather than a lack of education or ambition. A survey covering 46 major urban centers in India revealed that childcare and housework prevent 69% of unemployed women from participating in the workforce.
Furthermore, the gender gap is evident: only about 1% of unemployed men cite childcare or housework as the reason for their absence from the labor market, whereas among women, this is an overwhelmingly common explanation.
Even a high level of education has not solved this problem. More than 60% of female graduates are either not working or not looking for work. Moreover, only about one in ten unemployed graduates actively seeks employment, compared to almost eight out of ten men.
Nibha Singh Mahar, an English teacher at the Military School in Ranikete, personally faced this issue. After getting married at 23 and having a child at 25, she paused her career for nearly two and a half years. She argues that motherhood and professional success are not mutually exclusive goals, and that with family support, workplace flexibility, and good childcare, many women successfully combine both roles.
The study also showed significant differences in women's experiences depending on their place of residence, indicating structural rather than purely cultural factors. In Gohrah, 83% of unemployed women cite domestic and caregiving duties as the reason for not being in paid employment, while in Surat, this figure is 81%. Meanwhile, in Coimbatore and Agra, this percentage is lower—38% and 41% respectively. Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Srinagar, and Kota also show significantly lower figures.
The contrast between cities highlights that childcare remains predominantly a private family responsibility, not a public infrastructure. Although India has significantly expanded girls' access to education over the last two decades, systems enabling women to remain employed—such as affordable nurseries, reliable kindergartens, after-school care, safe transportation, and flexible workplaces—have not developed at the same pace.
Kanchan Ja, a mathematics teacher at a private school in Surat, took 12 years out of paid work to care for children before returning to teaching. She noted that the hardest part was time management and the feeling that neither role received her full attention. She emphasized that the most crucial change would be the availability of accessible and reliable childcare support.
Existing laws, such as the Maternity Benefit Act (Amendment) 2017, mandate the establishment of nurseries in many institutions, and the MGNREGA program provides for childcare at workplaces. However, over 85% of working women in India are engaged in the informal sector, which takes them outside the scope of the benefit law. Furthermore, a 2019 study by the National Institute of Labour VV Giri found that three out of four organizations with more than 50 employees lacked the required childcare facilities.
The situation is particularly difficult in agriculture, where over 70% of working women are employed, but less than 1% receive maternity benefits. In Rajasthan, a survey showed that only 53% of women were aware of the right to childcare services, and only 0.7% reported the availability of nurseries at the workplace.
Women who remain in the workforce also face unequal conditions. According to an NSO survey, the average monthly salary of male employees across 46 cities is 30,700 rupees, while women earn 23,700 rupees, representing a gap of about 23%. This imbalance is even wider in cities like Kalyan-Dombivli, Navi Mumbai, and Nagpur, where women earn almost half as much as men. Self-employed women earn even less than half of their male counterparts.
This is not just a matter of gender equality, but also an economic one. According to the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the Female Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) for persons aged 15 and above rose to 35.3% in December 2025. The rural LFPR reached 40.1%, and the urban LFPR reached 25.3%, highlighting the persistent gap between rural and urban areas of India.
Thus, although more women are entering the labor market, caregiving responsibilities continue to hinder many, especially in cities, from participating in paid employment. The solution lies not just in creating jobs, but in creating the conditions that allow women to take them, including accessible childcare and flexible workplaces.
According to a new study by the National Statistical Office (NSO), childcare and household management are the reason why about 69% of women in India's largest 46 cities with populations over one million do not participate in the workforce. This fact highlights the gender bias in caregiving even in more affluent areas of the country.
The survey on labor market indicators in large cities, first published by TOI on Tuesday, revealed that only 1% of women cited 'social reasons' for their absence from employment, although the report does not detail these reasons. In contrast, 1% of men indicated childcare and housework as a reason for being unable to work.
India is among the world's major economies with some of the lowest female labor force participation rates, estimated at 30.7% by 2025, despite an observed trend of growth in recent years. However, the picture varies depending on the specific city. For example, in Horah, 83% of women cited childcare and household duties as the reason for leaving the workforce, followed by Surat (81%), Pimpri Chinchwad and Bhopal (78%), and Danbad (77%). In Coimbatore, the share was significantly lower—38%, as was in Agra (41%), Kota (57%), Hyderabad (58%), Visakhapatnam, and Srinagar (60%).
In addition, some women gave up work to continue their education (16%), while 10% attributed their absence from the workforce to health or age problems. Among men, more than half (53%) cited continuing education as a reason for being unable to work, and 39% cited health problems and age factors. The study also demonstrated an improvement in the quality of work for women in large cities compared to other urban areas: 65% reported being employed, compared to 51% in general urban areas, and the proportion of casual work was 3% versus 9% in urban areas.
Despite these cities having a wage premium, they also reflect gender inequality in pay. While an employed man in cities with over a million inhabitants earned 30,700 rupees per month, a woman earned 23,700 rupees, which is 23% less. This gap was particularly noticeable in cities such as Kalyan-Dombivli, Navi Mumbai, and Nagpur, where women earned almost half as much as their male counterparts. The city of Prayagraj appeared to defy this trend, showing that women there earn more than men. In the case of self-employment, men (33,880 rupees) earned more than twice as much as women (16,160 rupees).
On average, workers in cities with over a million inhabitants worked 49.5 hours per week compared to 47.1 hours in urban areas of India. Both men and women in large cities reported a higher average number of hours worked compared to workers in other urban areas of India. Women in salaried positions in Rajkot (51.5 hours) and Faridabad (50 hours) worked the longest hours on the job.
