Despite India’s rapid strides in education and economic reforms, its cities are failing half their population. As more women pursue higher education and acquire market-ready skills, their entry into the workforce should be reshaping the urban economy. Instead, they remain stranded — not for lack of ambition, but for the absence of safe, affordable, and reliable mobility options. At a time when women’s labour force participation is rising sharply in rural India, the stagnation in urban areas reveals a silent crisis.

“India’s care economy runs on women’s unpaid labour — but when it comes to supporting their mobility, policy ideas are still playing catch-up,” remarked Dr Shamika Ravi, Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, at a recent dialogue on women’s mobility.

Drawing attention to the invisible contribution of women’s unpaid care work, Dr Ravi highlighted how urban policies must prioritize women’s mobility to unlock India’s human capital potential. She was speaking at Uddeshya: Towards Gender-Responsive Urban Mobility Systems organized in New Delhi.

The Invisible Care Economy in India

Dr Ravi referenced a recent study by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, which estimated the size of India’s care economy — the unpaid work primarily undertaken by women within households. On average, working-age women in India spend 5-6 hours daily on caregiving responsibilities, including childcare, elderly care, and domestic duties. This work, while essential to the functioning of society, remains unrecognized in GDP calculations as it does not involve monetary transactions.

“Care work is not marketable, therefore it is not part of the GDP. But its absence would cause the entire economy to collapse,” Dr Ravi remarked, advocating for greater investment in care infrastructure to support women’s unpaid labour.

The Rise of Rural Women’s Workforce Participation

Over the past eight years, women’s labour force participation in India has shown a remarkable rise — from 24% to 40%, according to Periodic Labour Force Survey Data. However, Dr Ravi pointed out that this increase is driven almost entirely by rural women.

In contrast, urban women’s participation remains stagnant, with only a 24% increase compared to 69% in rural areas during the same period.

The rise in rural participation, she explained, is largely due to government initiatives such as Mudra loans, Self-Help Groups (SHGs), and Drone Didi — schemes designed to foster women’s economic participation at the grassroots level.

Urban Women Left Behind in India

Despite higher educational attainment — with 45% of STEM graduates in India being women and more women enrolled in higher education than men — urban women’s participation in the workforce remains disproportionately low.

“The paradox is that urban Indian women are more educated and more skilled than ever before, but they are not able to harness their human capital because they lack basic mobility infrastructure,” Dr. Ravi observed.

Mobility as Care Infrastructure

Dr Ravi emphasized that women’s mobility is fundamentally linked to care infrastructure, both in terms of enabling their economic participation and in easing their caregiving responsibilities. However, she cautioned against one-size-fits-all solutions like free bus rides without addressing issues of safety, reliability, and sustainability.

“If free bus services are proving successful, they must be scaled across cities — but with mechanisms that ensure they are financially viable and responsive to women’s needs,” she noted.

The Need for Evidence-Based Solutions

While applauding pilot projects and policy experiments in various cities, Dr. Ravi called for evidence-based case studies that demonstrate the long-term impact of such interventions.

“Sustainable case studies become very important in driving officials to adopt these solutions at scale. Women are willing to pay for safe, reliable transport — but they need systems that work,” she added.

Key Takeaways:

• Women’s unpaid care work forms a critical yet invisible part of the economy.
• Mobility infrastructure must be seen as care infrastructure to ease women’s dual burden of work and caregiving.
• Urban women’s workforce participation remains low despite higher education levels.
• Evidence-based case studies and scalable solutions are essential to drive policy action.
• The rising urban development budget must be directed towards safe, accessible, and sustainable transport systems for women.

Way Forward: Bridging Ideas and Implementation

With the Union Budget 2024-25 allocating nearly ₹1 lakh crore for urban development — a 17% increase from the previous year — Dr Ravi urged policymakers to channel these funds into innovative mobility solutions for women.

“The real constraint today is not financing, but ideas. We must bridge the gap between policy and practice by showcasing what works, how much it costs, and how it can be sustained,” she concluded.

Dr. Shamika Ravi’s address underscored the interconnectedness of women’s mobility, care work, and economic participation. As Indian cities expand and budgets rise, there is an urgent need to design inclusive urban infrastructure that enables women to contribute meaningfully to the economy. Investing in women’s mobility is not just about transport — it is about unlocking the full potential of India’s human capital and reshaping the future of urban development.

Uddeshya 2025 is being organised under the aegis of MobiliseHER, a three-year project, co-funded by EuropeAid, to enable gender-responsive urban mobility and create more accessible and inclusive infrastructure and services, undertaken in partnership with Urban Electric Mobility Initiative (UEMI), WRI India, CEPT Research and Development Foundation, and Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) India.