How to Improve Women's Workforce Participation

With the changing attitudes of the society towards women working and making their own hard-earned money, there has certainly been an increase in the workforce participation of women. However, we still have a long way to go. Research shows that having more women in the workforce will improve the country's economy considerably. Although we have 43% of the total working women in regular wage and salaried positions by the year 2011-2012 (which is an increase from the 28.5% that existed in 1993-1994), we have still need to achieve a lot in terms of including more and more women into the workforce of India. The Glow & Lovely Careers (formerly known as Fair & Lovely Career Foundation) encourages more & more women to come forward and utilize their potential to become self-sufficient by providing them free online courses, career guidance, online mock tests and more.

Here are a few ways by which women’s workforce participation in our country can be improved:

Support from family

One of the biggest challenges that girls face with respect to getting higher education and going to work is the lack of support from family. Girls were most often married off very early and stopped from achieving the kind of education or profession they wanted. With the changing times, the mindset of Indian families is also changing and their support can make a huge difference.

Government schemes

The Indian government has devised numerous plans to achieve better workforce participation from women. Various schemes like STEP (Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women), MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), MUDRA, etc have been made to support women who wish to work.

There are many girls in our country who do not get the opportunity to work owing to a lack of proper education. To make quality education more accessible many entities like the Glow & Lovely Careers provide online courses for free that interested women can take. The foundation also provides online certification courses in numerous subjects which can help them enter the profession they like.

Working women hostels

For those women staying away from homes for work, the government has come up with this scheme to promote the availability of safe and conveniently located accommodation for the working women. The accommodation will include daycare facilities for the children of these working women in the urban, semi-urban and even rural areas. Aspiring women professionals should make use of this.

Corporates supporting women

Corporate companies must alter their policies to enable more women to join the workplace. There are many women who leave their jobs at corporate companies due to certain unfavourable conditions. Although companies like Adobe, IndiGo, etc have made commendable changes, more of them should join.

Better support from the society will help more women make the right career choices and explore more career options.