[{"bbox": [96, 152, 1134, 286], "category": "Text", "text": "India ranks 135 among 146 nations in the 2022 World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap report. Not only women political representation is low - as of February 2021, only 14.4 percent of seats in parliament were held by women¹³, but also **women's Labour Force Participation (LFP) has seen a declining trend over the past 20 years.** As such, women's LFP has not matched India's increase in economic growth. Recent (2022) estimates puts it at 24% compared to the global average of 47.3%¹⁴."}, {"bbox": [96, 312, 783, 339], "category": "Text", "text": "There are several reasons in particular that could explain this phenomenon:"}, {"bbox": [96, 341, 821, 368], "category": "List-item", "text": "* India lacking sufficient jobs that are appropriate and accessible for women."}, {"bbox": [96, 370, 530, 396], "category": "List-item", "text": "* Inadequate education, skills and capacities."}, {"bbox": [96, 398, 1133, 450], "category": "List-item", "text": "* Safety concerns, with more women migrating to urban areas, and unsafe public, private, digital, and work places."}, {"bbox": [96, 452, 1133, 505], "category": "List-item", "text": "* Patriarchal social norms: low support in society for working women, arising from patriarchal structures, dictating that women prioritise responsibilities over professional aspirations."}, {"bbox": [96, 507, 747, 533], "category": "List-item", "text": "* Traditional expectations of women to shoulder family care burden."}, {"bbox": [96, 535, 1064, 561], "category": "List-item", "text": "* Women from scheduled tribes and castes start working at an early age because of the urgency to earn."}, {"bbox": [96, 563, 881, 589], "category": "List-item", "text": "* The impact of COVID-19 which has worsened many of these existing conditions."}, {"bbox": [96, 591, 1133, 643], "category": "List-item", "text": "* Women dropping out of the workforce as household incomes rise because they can afford to (no longer having to do manual labor)."}, {"bbox": [96, 647, 642, 672], "category": "List-item", "text": "* Women remaining longer now in the education system."}, {"bbox": [96, 674, 1133, 727], "category": "List-item", "text": "* Women doing a lot of unpaid work – running a household, or planting and harvesting on a family farm – that doesn't get counted."}, {"bbox": [96, 753, 1133, 860], "category": "Text", "text": "It is also important to recall that out of the population of working women, more than 90 percent work in the informal sector as self-employed or casual workers (predominantly in agricultural and construction sectors). This means that they face increased exploitation, poor working conditions, lack of mobility, and higher risk of violence. This discourages women from entering the workforce."}, {"bbox": [96, 884, 1133, 1018], "category": "Text", "text": "The UN Women's regional flagship programme, Promoting Economic Empowerment of Women at Work in Asia – WeEmpower Asia (WEA) 2019-2022, with support from the EU, focused on fostering the WEPs and promoting women's entrepreneurship in a more holistic approach to increasing the number of women who lead and participate in business in the Asia Pacific region. WEA recognised the potential of the private sector in creating decent employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for women and girls and focused on three key components:"}, {"bbox": [96, 1018, 1133, 1069], "category": "List-item", "text": "1. Creating an enabling business environment (knowledge exchange, sharing expertise, making the business case)"}, {"bbox": [96, 1071, 1133, 1123], "category": "List-item", "text": "2. Driving gender-inclusive entrepreneurship (capable and connected women business owners and women entrepreneurs)"}, {"bbox": [96, 1125, 862, 1152], "category": "List-item", "text": "3. Implementing the UN's WEPs (gender-sensitive business culture and practices)"}, {"bbox": [96, 1176, 1133, 1413], "category": "Text", "text": "In India, thanks to WEA, the number of companies having adopted the WEPs increased from 54 to 322 in the course of the project implementation¹⁵. The programme focused on WEPs' adoption and supported their implementation through training and customised implementation guidance although more efforts are needed to support the implementation of the WEPs at scale (c.f. lessons learnt). In addition, over 2000 micro, small and medium women entrepreneurs were supported towards increasing their access to finance, markets, and networks (through training, matchmaking and mentorship). Through this work, women entrepreneurs have been able to expand their business operations within and outside of the country, have identified relevant business models to apply to their business, improved their digital e-commerce skills and taken steps to become more gender-inclusive business themselves.¹⁶¹⁷"}, {"bbox": [86, 1451, 435, 1477], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹³ https://data.unwomen.org/country/india"}, {"bbox": [86, 1477, 829, 1525], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹⁴ World Bank. Labor force participation rate, female (% of female population ages 15+)- https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS"}, {"bbox": [86, 1525, 1144, 1574], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹⁵ In India, the WEPs signatories are diverse in sectors but also in size. Of a total of 358 companies currently, 46% have 1-50 employees; 28% have 51-1000 employees, 25% have 1001-50,000 employees and 1% have 50001 to 100000 employees."}, {"bbox": [86, 1573, 1128, 1621], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹⁶ https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2021/11/driving-womens-entrepreneurship-innovation-and-leadership-in-india#view"}, {"bbox": [86, 1621, 411, 1646], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹⁷ https://thedo.world/wearable-poetry/"}, {"bbox": [1038, 1682, 1144, 1706], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 6 of 25"}]