The gender angle to India’s economic vulnerabilities , Pg6

Key Highlights:

• The United States is proposing 50% tariffs on $40 billion of Indian exports, potentially reducing India's GDP by nearly 1%.
• India's female labor force participation rate (FLFPR) remains low, between 37% and 41.7%, significantly below the global average and China's 60%.
• Textiles, gems, leather, and footwear sectors, employing nearly 50 million people, face a projected export decline of up to 50% due to the tariffs.
• Karnataka's Shakti scheme, offering free public bus travel to women since 2023, has increased female ridership by over 40%.

Detailed Insights:

• The proposed tariffs by the U.S. threaten to destabilize employment for millions of Indian women in labor-intensive sectors.
• India's failure to economically empower women is not just a social concern but a strategic liability, hindering the utilization of its demographic dividend, which is expected to close by 2045.
• Low FLFPR in India risks the fate of Southern European economies, such as Italy and Greece, where it has placed a long-term drag on growth.
• Global examples, such as the U.S. during World War II and China's post-1978 reforms, demonstrate how leveraging women's labor can boost economic growth.
• Rajasthan's Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme has created over four crore person-days of work, with nearly 65% of jobs going to women.
• Formalizing gig and part-time work through updated labor codes and social protections would bring millions of women into the formal economy.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Demographic Dividend: The economic growth potential resulting from a shift in a population's age structure, mainly when the share of the working-age population is larger than the non-working-age share of the population.
• Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR): The percentage of women who are employed or actively seeking employment in the labor force.
• Tariffs: Taxes imposed on imported goods or services, increasing their cost and potentially reducing trade volume.