New Delhi: In a city where female enrolment in higher education has steadily risen, only 21.3% of its women are part of the workforce, meaning nearly four out of five of them remain outside it.
A first-of-its-kind district-level study attempts to find out why women remain sharply underrepresented in Delhi’s workforce. Led by Vedica for Women in collaboration with Young FICCI Ladies Organisation and conducted by Nikore Associates, an economics research group, the study engaged directly with 3,000 women across the city to understand their aspirations, choices and lived realities of work. At its launch, women and child development secretary Rashmi Singh underscored a deeper issue. “It is often assumed that women will take on most responsibilities without being paid.
Today, the bigger challenge is changing this mindset, both in society and among women themselves. Beyond respect, there is a need for structural recognition,” she said. So, what’s holding Delhi’s women back? The findings suggest the answer lies not in a single barrier but in a web of overlapping constraints. The study, based on a mixed-methods approach — 60% in-person surveys and 40% digital responses — along with focus group discussions and stakeholder interviews, examines five key dimensions: unpaid care work, workplace policies, aspiration gaps, income dynamics and mobility.
Nearly half of the non-working women report having supportive families, while only 10.5% face clear resistance. For most, the barriers lie elsewhere. The first layer of this puzzle lies inside the home, in unpaid care work, which is in the form of looking after children and doing household chores. The data shows that 79.5% of working women and 85.1% of those who don’t work have to shoulder such responsibilities, making care work nearly universal regardless of their employment status. What differs is not whether women do care work, but how they manage it. Many working women juggle both paid and unpaid roles. Nearly one in three spends over six hours a day on unpaid care tasks. Despite this, formal childcare systems remain limited in the city. Most women rely on informal arrangements, such as family members (26.7%) or local networks (27.1%). Only 7.7% use workplace-linked childcare, and just 10.8% depend on paid domestic help.
Spousal participation remains low at 10.9%. As Mitali Nikore, founder of Nikore Associates, noted that though care work consistently dominates conversations, only 4% to 6% of women identify childcare support as a priority workplace policy, suggesting that unpaid care is deeply internalised and often not recognised as a structural constraint. Mandakini Kaul, south Asia regional coordinator at World Bank Group, said, “Maybe it’s because they have never seen the ideal model in front of them.” Instead, flexibility emerges as the defining factor shaping women’s participation in work. Among non-working women, 20.9% prefer work-from-home options and 20.3% flexible hours. Among working women, flexible hours (21.6%) rank highest in preference, followed by health insurance (17.6%) and work-from-home options (15%). In short, women want jobs that fit into their lives, not ones that force them to reorganise their lives entirely. Even when Delhi’s women enter the workforce, staying in it remains a challenge. Workplace environments often push women out quietly. “It can happen in ways no one understands,” highlighted one speaker. Perhaps the most critical insight lies in what the study terms a “first-entry failure”. Nearly three-quarters of educated non-working women in Delhi have never worked at all, pointing to a systemic barrier at the entry stage, not just retention. Education alone does not guarantee employment. Women with general bachelor’s degrees are significantly more likely to remain out of the workforce, while professional qualifications improve outcomes, revealing a clear gap between education and employability. The reasons women cite for not working are varied: 11.2% say they do not want to work, which hints at multiple psychological factors; 8.4% point to marriage or family responsibilities and 7.3% cite safety concerns. Further, economic returns also play a role. A large share of working women is concentrated in lower-paying sectors like retail (25.9%) and education (23%), with limited presence in higher-paying professional roles. As a result, earnings remain modest, weakening the incentive to enter or stay in the workforce. Mobility further constrains access. Two-thirds of working women report commuting challenges, including concerns around safety, cost and time. While Delhi Metro is the most used mode of travel, 44.5% of non-working women say better connectivity will enable them to go to office. Anuradha Das Mathur, founder of Vedica for Women, said, “The findings show that Delhi’s low female workforce participation is not about a lack of willingness, but a systemic misalignment. From limited awareness of workplace care facilities to the need for more flexible work structures, multiple factors are at play.” The study recommends expanding community-based childcare, especially in underserved districts, including through underutilised public infrastructure like creches, while also formalising flexible work arrangements across sectors.
It calls for stronger enforcement of workplace safety norms, including mechanisms to address harassment, and improving access to skilling pathways that connect women to higher-paying, formal jobs.
Investment in last-mile connectivity is also flagged as critical to make existing public transport systems more accessible and usable for women. Expanding community childcare networks and introducing shared-cost maternity benefit models to ease the burden on employers are also seen to be of help.
