Despite economic growth, only 33% of Indian women are active in the labor market, compared to around 50% globally and 37% in neighboring Bangladesh. India’s low female labor participation rate is attributed to persistent conservative norms that discourage women from working outside the home, as well as a lack of job opportunities and a high burden of unpaid housework. However, there are ways to encourage women to enter the workforce while assuaging the concerns of conservative families. One example is a factory in Tamil Nadu that employs exclusively women and provides buses to transport them safely to and from work, creating a safe and supportive environment that addresses the concerns of families who may be hesitant to allow their daughters to work outside the home.
The factory is run by Ola, a company that makes electric scooters. The factory employs around 10,000 people, and the assembly line is staffed exclusively by women. Most workers are from the surrounding villages, and Ola provides buses to ensure they get there safely. Such women-only or women-majority factories can create a virtuous cycle, as many workers refer their friends and neighbors, and once people from the surrounding areas realize that the jobs are safe and decently paid, the objections die down.
Other problems, such as men lurking outside the factory gates and chasing the buses transporting women workers, can be solved with a heavier security presence. The results of this virtuous cycle can be observed in Bangladesh, which has a similar conservative culture to India but has been more successful at getting women into work, largely owing to the better availability of jobs.
India may be following a similar trajectory, as women’s participation in the labor market has begun to grow again after declining for nearly two decades. However, this uptick appears to have been driven less by the availability of better jobs and more by women in dire financial straits being forced to return to the hard agricultural work they had previously left. India will need many more Ola factories to travel up the far side of the U-shaped development trajectory that suggests women’s labor market participation will increase as incomes rise and women’s education levels and the availability of white-collar jobs improve.
