The intersection of gender and labour in India unveils a paradox: while economic liberalisation has expanded opportunities in certain sectors, it has simultaneously entrenched precarity, especially for women. The overwhelming concentration of female workers in the informal economy—constituting over 90% of India’s female workforce—demonstrates a structural failure of both policy and social reform to secure gendered labour justice.

This feminisation of informal labour is not merely about numbers. It reflects a deeper systemic devaluation of women’s work, both paid and unpaid. From garment manufacturing and domestic work to street vending and agricultural labour, women remain overrepresented in low-wage, insecure, and unregulated employment. These roles offer little to no social security, healthcare, maternity benefits, or legal protection against exploitation and harassment.

The 2020–21 pandemic further amplified these vulnerabilities. Lockdowns disproportionately affected women workers, who were the first to be laid off and among the last to be rehired. Female labour force participation dropped to one of the lowest in the world, and yet this decline was met with policy silence or, worse, instrumentalised through rhetoric around “returning to traditional family values.”

Importantly, caste and religion exacerbate this marginalisation. Dalit and Adivasi women, as well as Muslim women, face layered discrimination in access to dignified work. Manual scavenging, still practiced despite its legal abolition, is predominantly carried out by Dalit women. The state’s inaction on this front underlines the normalisation of caste-gendered labour hierarchies.

Furthermore, mainstream feminist discourse often overlooks the centrality of labour justice. Middle-class feminism’s focus on representation and rights within corporate or elite academic spaces risks invisibilising the everyday struggles of working-class women. A transformative gender politics must therefore integrate class and caste analysis, moving beyond symbolic empowerment to structural change.

The policy response needs radical rethinking. Universalisation of social protections, formalisation of informal sectors without loss of autonomy, enforcement of equal pay, and recognition of unpaid care work are essential first steps. More fundamentally, a feminist political economy must reframe how value and productivity are defined in Indian society.

In sum, the question is not merely about including women in the workforce, but restructuring the economy itself to recognise and value the labour of those who sustain it.