India stands 12th in worst countries for gender disparity in the labour force

According to data from the United Nations Human Development Report (UNHDR), India performs poorly when it comes to gender parity in labour force participation. India ranked 12th is the only non-Islamic country.

The worst performing country in terms of gender disparity is Afghanistan, where the difference is 67.2 per cent, followed by Yemen and the Syrian Arab Republic.

The male labour participation rate is 78.8 per cent in India while the number for females is just 27.2 per cent, a difference of 51.6 per cent. India is also far below the global female participation average of 48.7 per cent.

Countries like US and China are not in the top 100 of this list, China is 104th with a difference of 14.6 per cent, while the US is 114th with a difference of 12.6 per cent.

Ashwini Deshpande, a professor at the Delhi School of Economics, who specialises in discrimination, gender and affirmative action, said this was a worrying situation for India.

“On the domestic front, it is the burden of domestic work that keeps women out of the formal labour force. They do a large range of activities that are economic activities, but are unpaid,” she said.

She refused to consider Islam as a barrier to women’s freedom to work, after all, Muslim-majority countries like Sierra Leone, Azerbaijan and Nigeria are all ranked below 140 in the list.

She said “it is wrong to focus on Islam as a barrier to women’s labour force participation. Bangladesh is an Islamic country, but has a higher rate of female participation than India.”