Women’s Day 2019: Labour force participation of females is still an Achilles Heel for India.

Kavita Rao was attending a job interview for a position as data analyst at an IT-services firm in Bengaluru. One of the questions puzzled her. She was asked if she will be able to ‘handle’ pressures of the work since she recently got married. Rao wondered if her male friends were asked the same. In another part of India, DishaBasu was asked if she will be ‘allowed’ to work after 6 pm since her house was two hours away from her office in Purulia, West Bengal. Will you shift after marriage is a usual question faced by female job aspirants? These are some of the questions, and factors that have led to a drop in the percentage of women in the country’s labour force, a sobering thought as the world celebrates Women’s Day. The Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) of females in India is among the lowest in the world. And this comes as no surprise. Human resource officials said that both organisational and societal factors play a role in the fewer number of women joining the workforce.