Policy Measures to Promote Gender Equality in the Workplace

India’s female labour force participation rate has climbed sharply in recent years, yet the journey toward genuine workplace equality is far from over. Wage gaps persist, women remain clustered in informal jobs, and hiring biases continue to push qualified women out of formal employment. Policy measures, when designed and implemented well, are the scaffolding that holds up this transition. This post breaks down the major legal provisions, support systems, and entrepreneurial schemes that shape gender equality in the Indian workplace today.

Why policy intervention matters 🔗

Social norms alone do not shift labour markets. Laws, schemes, and institutional support do the heavy lifting of converting constitutional ideals into everyday workplace realities. According to the Ministry of Labour and Employment, the Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) rose from 23% in 2017-18 to nearly 42% in 2023-24, one of the steepest jumps among BRICS economies. This rise is closely tied to targeted policy action on credit, skilling, and workplace protections.

Still, the same data tells a sobering story. The Economic Survey 2024 notes that women’s unpaid care work contributes roughly 3.1% to GDP, and over 90% of employed women remain in the informal sector without social security or maternity protection. Policy measures must therefore address both the formal sector’s leaky pipeline and the informal sector’s structural neglect.

Key legal provisions 🔗

The Indian Constitution lays the foundation. Articles 14, 15, and 16 guarantee equality before law, prohibit sex-based discrimination, and ensure equal opportunity in public employment. Article 39(d) further directs the State to secure equal pay for equal work. From this bedrock flows a network of specific labour laws.

Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 🔗

This Act mandates that men and women must receive equal pay for the same work or work of a similar nature. It also prohibits discrimination in recruitment, training, transfers, and promotions. Employers who pay women less can face imprisonment of three months to one year and fines between ₹10,000 and ₹20,000 under Section 10. The Act applies to both organised and unorganised sectors, but enforcement has been weak. A review of the past decade found only about 16 reported rulings under the Act, most dealing with procedural issues rather than substantive pay inequity.

The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 🔗

This amendment was a landmark moment. It increased paid maternity leave from 12 weeks to 26 weeks for women working in establishments with 10 or more employees. Adoptive and commissioning mothers received 12 weeks of leave. The Act also introduced a “work from home” option that may be exercised by mutual agreement after the leave period ends. India now ranks among the more generous countries globally on this front, ahead of the United States, Australia, and Japan.

POSH Act, 2013 🔗

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, commonly known as the POSH Act, requires every employer with 10 or more employees to constitute an Internal Complaints Committee. It defines sexual harassment broadly and lays down a clear redressal procedure, ensuring women have a structured, confidential mechanism to report misconduct. Awareness building, however, remains uneven across smaller firms and the informal sector.

Reservation and representation 🔗

Reservation for women in legislative bodies received a major push with the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill, which seeks one-third reservation in the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies. In employment, while there is no blanket reservation for women in central government services, several states have introduced 30 to 50 percent horizontal reservation for women in government jobs. The Indian Constitution under Article 15(3) permits the State to make special provisions for women and children, providing the legal basis for these affirmative measures.

Support systems that keep women in the workforce 🔗

Laws on paper cannot work without enabling infrastructure. A 2023-24 PLFS analysis showed that female workforce participation rose from 22% in 2017-18 to 40.3% in 2023-24, with the share of women-owned MSMEs climbing from 17.4% to 26.2%. This jump reflects the cumulative effect of childcare, leave, and skilling policies working together.

Childcare and crèche facilities 🔗

The 2017 amendment to the Maternity Benefit Act made it mandatory for every establishment employing 50 or more employees to provide a crèche facility. Women employees can visit the crèche four times a day, including rest intervals. Karnataka was the first state to notify detailed crèche rules in 2019. The Factories Act, 1948, separately mandates a crèche for any factory employing more than 30 women workers.

Beyond statutory crèches, the National Crèche Scheme run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development provides day care for children of working mothers from low-income families. The scheme covers children aged 6 months to 6 years, offering nutrition, health monitoring, and pre-school education.

Parental leave and flexible work 🔗

For central government employees, women are entitled to 730 days of Child Care Leave during the entire service period, in addition to maternity leave. The grant of 180 days of paid maternity leave for government employees, exemption from competitive exam fees, and the provision to post spouses at the same station are all designed to retain women in long-term careers. Private sector adoption of flexible work, remote work, and phased return-to-work policies has also grown sharply since 2020.

Skill development 🔗

Skill gaps remain a key barrier to formal employment. The Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), Skill India Mission, and the Mahila Coir Yojana have specifically targeted women. The Startup India initiative has supported over 73,000 startups with at least one woman director, almost half of all recognised startups. The Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP), run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, focuses on women from disadvantaged backgrounds in sectors such as agriculture, handlooms, food processing, and IT-enabled services.

Empowering women entrepreneurs 🔗

Entrepreneurship is one of the most powerful routes to economic autonomy for women, especially those who cannot easily access formal employment. The government has built a multi-layered ecosystem of credit, mentoring, and market access.

Credit access through flagship schemes 🔗

The Stand-Up India Scheme requires every bank branch to lend between ₹10 lakh and ₹1 crore to at least one Scheduled Caste, one Scheduled Tribe, and one woman entrepreneur for setting up a greenfield enterprise. As of late 2023, 84% of the roughly 2.09 lakh loans sanctioned under Stand-Up India had gone to women entrepreneurs. The Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) offers collateral-free loans up to ₹10 lakh under three categories: Shishu, Kishor, and Tarun. Women receive preferential interest rates and form a majority of beneficiaries.

Other notable schemes include the Mahila Udyam Nidhi Scheme for small-scale industries, the Dena Shakti Scheme, and the Annapurna Scheme for food-based businesses. The TREAD (Trade Related Entrepreneurship Assistance and Development) Scheme provides up to 30% government grants for projects supporting women in non-farm activities.

Property and asset access 🔗

Without ownership of assets, women’s bargaining power inside and outside the household remains limited. The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 gave daughters equal rights to ancestral property. State governments have also reduced or waived stamp duty on properties registered in women’s names. Schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana mandate joint ownership or sole ownership by women for subsidy eligibility, which has expanded female asset ownership significantly over the past decade.

Financial inclusion 🔗

Access to a bank account is the first step to financial autonomy. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) dramatically expanded banking access for women. The PM SVANidhi scheme for street vendors has seen women make up about 45% of beneficiaries, with around 30 lakh women street vendors receiving collateral-free micro credit since the scheme’s launch. The Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), incubated at NITI Aayog, links women entrepreneurs with investors, mentors, and business networks.

Self-Help Groups and community finance 🔗

The National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) has organised crores of rural women into Self-Help Groups, linking them with formal credit and livelihood opportunities. Schemes like the Namo Drone Didi programme aim to provide 15,000 drones to women SHGs by 2026, opening new income streams in agriculture and allied sectors.

Gaps that policy must still close 🔗

Despite this dense policy landscape, real-world outcomes lag behind. The Code on Wages 2019, once fully implemented, will subsume the Equal Remuneration Act and make the framework gender-neutral, but enforcement gaps remain a recurring concern. The cost of maternity leave continues to fall entirely on employers, leading to concerns about hiring bias against young women. Sharing this cost with the government, as Singapore, Brazil, and France do, would reduce employer disincentives.

Awareness remains another bottleneck. A report by the EdelGive Foundation found that only 11% of women entrepreneurs are aware of the schemes available, and just 1% have actually accessed them. Outreach, simplification, and last-mile delivery need at least as much attention as scheme design.

The informal sector, where the vast majority of women workers are located, sits largely outside these protections. Domestic workers, agricultural labourers, street vendors, and home-based workers have only patchy access to minimum wages, maternity benefits, or grievance mechanisms. The four Labour Codes passed in 2019-20 attempt to extend social security more universally, but their full implementation is still pending.

What do you think? Which of these policy measures do you believe has had the most transformative impact on women’s economic lives in the past decade? And if you had to design one new policy to push female workforce participation past 50%, what would it look like?

References

1. https://www.newsonair.gov.in/india-witnesses-rise-in-female-workforce-participation-reaches-42-in-2023-24/
2. https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/female-labour-force-participation-in-india
3. https://lawbhoomi.com/constitutional-provisions-for-women-in-india/
4. https://thelaw.institute/law-and-vulnerable-groups/legal-provisions-for-women-workers-india/
5. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7e83a562-eecb-41d5-b042-3fc78ac0f1aa
6. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1898874
7. https://lawvs.com/articles/gender-equality-and-anti-discrimination-laws-in-the-workplace
8. https://www.studyiq.com/articles/women-workforce-participation-in-india/
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_Benefit_(Amendment)_Act,_2017
10. https://www.usthadian.com/rise-of-indias-female-workforce-in-2023-24/
11. https://www.ibef.org/news/multiple-schemes-launched-by-government-to-provide-financial-support-to-women-across-india
12. https://www.changeincontent.com/financial-schemes-for-women-entrepreneurs/
13. https://www.narendramodi.in/mobile/aspiration-to-enterprises-the-journey-of-making-women-financially-independent-
14. https://www.lexology.com/commentary/employment-immigration/india/trilegal/workplace-equality-in-india
15. https://blog.ipleaders.in/the-maternity-benefit-act/