The Catalyst of Indian Economy

Recently Saudi Arabia lifted ban on women driving, the decision was partly driven by economic interests, Prince Khaled Bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., told Reuters. According to the World Bank figures India became the 6th largest economy in the world for 2017, pushing France to the 7th place. When we compared the figures, we surprisingly found that the India has all the potential to grab the top most position in terms of economy.

Top 10 Economies of World for 2017

The above figures depict countries in order of their GDP for year 2017, Canada claims 10th position in terms of economy. On the other hand, when we compare Women participation in economy of both countries (India and Canada) we saw a jaw dropping gap among these countries. The statistics says the rest:

The female participation in workforce of India is less than half of that of Canada, and on a gradual decrease as well. These symptoms are not considered favorable for a healthy economy and a developing nation like ours. Thus concluded that participation of women in economy is one of the most important aspect of growth and development.

“Women act as a catalyst in the economic growth of a country”

"Today, in 2018, we have a strong body of evidence that shows that women's participation in the economy is critical because when women are able to fulfill their economic potential, GDP goes up and poverty goes down," says Rachel Vogelstein, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, in referring to gross domestic product.

Why it’s Important

Participation of women in workforce leads to multiple outcomes such as poverty reduction, economic development, social development, infant mortality rate, family health and reduce gender gap. When we talk about Men and Women of our country, people quote “both are equal” but the reality on the ground level is totally different.

According to MOSPI (Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation) there is a huge gap in male and female participation in workforce of India.

As the data reveals considerable gaps between male and female workforce participation in Urban regions. When it comes to rural areas, the participation percentage is approximately 30% for females and 53% for males. Now one more interesting fact comes to light after comparing different stats based on urban and rural areas. We found that male participation in both urban and rural areas is almost same but on the other hand female participation faces huge gap in urban and rural areas i.e. 14.7 and 30.0.

When we bring more and more women to participate in workforce we are not simply employing them but we are adding something to our country’s GDP, we are harnessing the country’s potential energy towards country’s growth and development.

It is assumed that when the participation of women in India crosses 50% mark, there will be a significant growth in GDP and India will be leading world’s economy.