From farms to factories: Accelerating women's economic empowerment in India

For generations, women in India have carried the weight of this country in silence. Without applause or acknowledgment. Without policies designed with them in mind. They have fed its workers, raised its citizens, sustained its villages, and powered its cities. And all the while, they have been told they do not count. Not in the ledgers. Not in the GDP. Not in the boardrooms or the balance sheets.

Even today, we ask what might happen if women were finally allowed to do more than hold the world together quietly in the background. What if they were given the resources, the safety, and the opportunity to build not just homes but enterprises? Not just families but firms?

The answer is already all around us. We know that when women work, when women earn, when women lead, entire nations prosper. Research has tried to quantify what women have known for generations: if India were to close its gender gap in the workforce, the economy could grow by trillions. Women’s participation is not an afterthought or a social token. It is the driving force between stagnation and progress, between potential wasted and potential realized.

Yet the numbers remain difficult to ignore. India’s Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) has seen a dramatic rise—from 23.3% in 2017 to 41.7% in 2023-24 (Economic Survey 2025). But behind this surge lies a harsher reality: for many women, work still means toiling in the informal sector—on farms, in kitchens, behind sewing machines, and in local markets. They work without contracts, without