How Women’s Work is (and Isn’t) Recorded: A Closer Look at Global and Indian Labor Statistics

When we talk about who “works” in an economy, statistics rarely tell the full story, especially when it comes to women. A farmer’s wife who spends ten hours weeding fields, tending livestock, fetching water, and cooking for hired labourers may not appear in any official record of workers. A homemaker who manages a small tailoring business from her veranda might be classified as “engaged in domestic duties.” How a country counts its workers reveals how it values them, and for decades, women have been systematically undercounted across the world.

How labour force participation is measured
Two key concepts: Usual status and current weekly status
The puzzle of India’s female labour force participation
The decline-and-rise paradox
Why women’s work is systematically undercounted
The boundary problem: What counts as “work”?
The enumerator effect and the “principal activity” trap
What India’s Time Use Surveys reveal
The cost of invisibility
Global disparities in female labour force participation
Where women work most
Where women work least
Towards better measurement
What better data would change

How labour force participation is measured

The Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) is the share of the working-age population (typically aged 15 and above) that is either employed or actively looking for work. In India, this figure is generated primarily through the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) conducted by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. The PLFS replaced the older quinquennial Employment-Unemployment Surveys in 2017-18, allowing more frequent measurement of who is working, who is not, and what kind of work they do.

Globally, the International Labour Organization (ILO) compiles harmonised estimates using national surveys, while the World Bank publishes comparable indicators through its World Development Indicators database. These figures shape policy, influence budget decisions, and determine how the world judges a country’s progress on gender equality.

Two key concepts: Usual status and current weekly status

In India, labour force statistics are reported using two main reference periods. Usual status looks at a person’s main activity over the past 365 days, while current weekly status (CWS) considers activity in the previous seven days. A woman who works in paddy transplantation for two months a year and stays home the rest of the time may be counted as a worker under one measure but not the other. The choice of reference period therefore affects how many women show up as “workers” in official statistics.

The puzzle of India’s female labour force participation

India’s female LFPR has long been considered one of the lowest among major economies. According to the PLFS 2023-24, the female LFPR stood at 41.7%, up sharply from 23.3% in 2017-18. This rise has been celebrated in some quarters as evidence of women’s growing economic participation. Yet the increase has been driven largely by rural women, and a closer look reveals that around 76.9% of rural female workers remain in agriculture, often as unpaid family labour rather than in waged employment.

Economists are divided on what this surge actually means. Some scholars argue that the rise may reflect economic distress rather than empowerment, with women entering work to supplement falling household incomes. Others suggest the improvement is partly a measurement effect: revised PLFS questionnaires may now capture activities that were previously missed.

The decline-and-rise paradox

Between 2004-05 and 2017-18, India experienced what researchers called a “secular decline” in female workforce participation, even as the country’s GDP grew rapidly. Standard explanations included rising household incomes (reducing the need for women to work), more girls staying longer in education, and a shrinking agricultural sector that historically absorbed female labour. But part of the decline was always suspected to be statistical illusion, women’s work in family enterprises and home-based production being inconsistently captured by survey enumerators.

Why women’s work is systematically undercounted

The biases in measuring women’s work are not accidental. They are built into the very design of labour statistics. The ILO has noted that stereotypes about distinct social roles for men and women continue to influence what gets measured, counted, and made visible in official data.

The boundary problem: What counts as “work”?

National accounts and most labour surveys follow the production boundary set by the United Nations System of National Accounts (SNA). Activities that produce goods for the market or for own consumption are usually counted, but unpaid domestic services, cooking for the family, cleaning, caring for children and the elderly, are placed outside the production boundary. Since women perform the overwhelming majority of these tasks, their contribution to household and societal well-being disappears from GDP and from employment figures.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that women perform on average two more hours of unpaid work per day than men, and redistribution of this burden could generate gains of up to 4% of GDP. In the European Union, unpaid family care work has been valued at between 17% and 31.6% of GDP, depending on the methodology used.

The enumerator effect and the “principal activity” trap

When a survey enumerator visits a household and asks the male head about his wife’s activity, the answer is often “she stays at home” or “household work.” This single response can erase hours of farm work, livestock care, kitchen gardening, and home-based production. Surveys that record only the principal activity tend to miss secondary economic work that many women perform alongside domestic duties.

This is why time-use surveys are considered a more honest measure of women’s contributions, because they ask people what they actually did in 30-minute slots over 24 hours, rather than asking them to define themselves with a single label.

What India’s Time Use Surveys reveal

India’s first nationwide Time Use Survey was conducted in 2019, covering nearly 1.4 lakh households and 4.47 lakh individuals aged six and above. The results were striking. An analysis by the Observer Research Foundation found that Indian women spend roughly eight times more hours on unpaid care work than men, and that this gap persists regardless of women’s educational qualifications, marital status, or employment.

The Gokhale Institute’s analysis of TUS 2019 data showed that women spend about 319 minutes per day on unpaid domestic services compared to 92 minutes for men on a normal day. The 2024 round of the survey, released in early 2025, showed only marginal improvement, with women still bearing the overwhelming share of household labour.

The cost of invisibility

When women’s work is invisible in statistics, it tends to be invisible in policy. Budgets do not allocate funds for problems they cannot see. Pensions, social security, and labour protections are typically tied to recognised employment, leaving home-based workers, agricultural family labourers, and domestic workers outside the safety net. This is why feminist economists have long argued that better measurement is itself a form of advocacy.

Global disparities in female labour force participation

The variation across countries is enormous. The global average female labour force participation rate hovers around 50%, but regional differences are stark. The Middle East and North Africa, along with South Asia, have historically shown the lowest rates of female participation, while Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia have some of the highest.

Where women work most

Countries like Rwanda, Burundi, Madagascar, and several other Sub-Saharan African nations consistently report female LFPRs above 75%. However, these high figures often mask the fact that most women are engaged in subsistence agriculture or informal work with little remuneration. Nordic countries such as Iceland, Sweden, and Norway also report high participation, but here the work is largely formal, with strong maternity protections, public childcare, and gender-equal labour laws.

Where women work least

At the other end of the spectrum, several countries in the Middle East and North Africa report female LFPRs below 20%. The ILO has reported that some countries have rates as low as 11%, reflecting a combination of restrictive social norms, limited access to safe transport, weak care infrastructure, and labour markets that offer few jobs considered “suitable” for women.

An interesting paradox emerges in middle-income countries: as GDP per capita rises from very low levels, female participation often falls before rising again, creating what economists call the U-shaped relationship between development and female employment. India sat at the bottom of this U for much of the 2000s and 2010s.

Towards better measurement

Recognising these gaps, statistical agencies worldwide are revising how they capture women’s work. The ILO has piloted new survey questions specifically designed to identify unpaid family workers and home-based producers. The PLFS in India was revamped in January 2025 to produce monthly and quarterly estimates, expanding coverage and giving a more granular picture of labour market dynamics.

Some countries, including Australia and New Zealand, have developed satellite accounts that calculate the monetary value of unpaid domestic production alongside formal GDP. These accounts treat household labour as a legitimate economic activity, even if it does not pass through markets. India has not yet adopted such accounts at scale, but the regular conduct of Time Use Surveys is a meaningful step in that direction.

What better data would change

If women’s unpaid work were counted properly, several things would shift. Policymakers would have a stronger case for investing in care infrastructure such as creches, eldercare centres, and public transport. Maternity benefits and crèche provisions under the Code on Social Security, 2020, which extended paid maternity leave to 26 weeks and mandated crèche facilities in workplaces with 50 or more employees, would be informed by more accurate data on caregiving demands. Labour laws could better protect home-based workers and informal employees, who form the majority of female workers in low and middle-income countries.

What do you think? If a woman spends her day cooking for a family of ten, caring for two children, and tending livestock on a small family farm, none of which appears in official statistics, can we honestly say she is “not working”? And what might change in our economy and policies if we counted every hour of this labour as real, valuable work?

References

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How Women’s Work is (and Isn’t) Recorded: A Closer Look at Global and Indian Labor Statistics

Table of Contents

How labour force participation is measured 🔗

Two key concepts: Usual status and current weekly status 🔗

The puzzle of India’s female labour force participation 🔗

The decline-and-rise paradox 🔗

Why women’s work is systematically undercounted 🔗

The boundary problem: What counts as “work”? 🔗

The enumerator effect and the “principal activity” trap 🔗

What India’s Time Use Surveys reveal 🔗

The cost of invisibility 🔗

Global disparities in female labour force participation 🔗

Where women work most 🔗

Where women work least 🔗

Towards better measurement 🔗

What better data would change 🔗