Although they make up 43 per cent of the workforce in India’s unorganised industrial sector, women mostly labour in low-wage, low-quality jobs.
Additionally, there are 947 proprietary set-ups for every 1,000 unorganised businesses in India, with 718 led by males and 229 by women. This means that women-led proprietorships make up just 25 per cent of all unorganised businesses in India.
This dismal reality of women workers in India’s informal labour market was made clear by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) through the publication of the Annual Survey on Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) 2022–2023.
A closer examination of the statistics, however, reveals a more positive picture, with trends of female leadership appearing in the commerce, manufacturing, and other service industries.
Women are in leadership positions in almost half of India’s unincorporated manufacturing businesses, according to ASUSE data. Compared to the trade industry, where women lead 12.4 per cent of firms, and other services industries, where they lead 11.1 per cent, this per centage is noticeably higher.
According to state-level data, women-led manufacturing proprietorships are more common in the southern regions of the nation, with Telangana leading the way. In Telangana, women run around 78.56 per cent of the unorganised manufacturing businesses. In Kerala, it is 59.61 per cent, and in Karnataka, it is 64.03 per cent.
53.81 per cent of Andhra Pradesh’s unorganised manufacturing businesses are run by women. In Tamil Nadu’s unorganised industrial sector, women run more than half of the businesses. These numbers, however, fall short of the 54 per cent national norm.
Delhi reported the lowest share of women-led enterprises — 19 per cent — followed by Uttarakhand (25.56 per cent), Assam (36.62 per cent), Chhattisgarh (40.41 per cent), Rajasthan (42.87 per cent), Bihar (45.2 per cent), Haryana (45.31 per cent), and Punjab (46.11 per cent).
