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The Demand-Side Story: Structural Change and the Decline in Female Labour Force Participation in India

Author

Listed:
  • Deshpande, Ashwini

    (Ashoka University)

  • Singh, Jitendra

    (Thapar School of Liberal Arts and Sciences)

Abstract

Mainstream literature attributes the decline in female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) in India between 2004-05 and 2017-18 primarily to supply-side factors. In this paper, we show that, in fact, demand-side factors are predominantly responsible for the decline. We begin by demonstrating that the contribution of supply-side factors to the FLFPR decline has been reducing over time. Changes in supply-side factors explain a miniscule part of the decline between 2011-12 and 2017-18. We estimate the contribution of structural transformation and local labour demand as the key determinants of declining FLFPR. Our identification strategy uses the Bartik shift-share instrument as the instrumental variable for measuring exogenous change in local labour demand. We find that female employment is highly responsive to local labour demand, but not male employment. The period of decline in FLFPR has also been a period of "jobless growth". We show that women have borne the brunt of the stagnant employment creation from 2004-05 onwards. Our analysis suggests that India needs to focus on creating rural non-farm jobs to boost FLFPR.

Suggested Citation

  • Deshpande, Ashwini & Singh, Jitendra, 2024. "The Demand-Side Story: Structural Change and the Decline in Female Labour Force Participation in India," IZA Discussion Papers 17368, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17368
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Bhattacharya, Leena & Van Soest, Arthur, 2025. "Education, Patriarchy, and Time Allocations of Married Couples," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1680, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    3. Vernekar, Nisha & Singhal, Karan, 2025. "Breaking the Night Barrier: Night-Shift Reforms and Women’s Work in India," CINCH Working Paper Series (since 2020) 84236, Duisburg-Essen University Library, DuEPublico.
    4. Cledwyn Fernandez & Shabana Mitra & Nency Agrawal, 2026. "Women in the Workforce: Moving the Dialogue from Centre to States," Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) Policy Paper 61, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi, India.
    5. Chiplunkar,Gaurav & Tatjana Kleineberg, 2025. "Gender Barriers, Structural Transformation, and Economic Development," Policy Research Working Paper Series 11083, The World Bank.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East

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