What India's Labour Statistics Tell Us and What They Don't About Women's Economic Security
Author: Sagari Gupta
Women's Economic Security
India's labour market has changed markedly over the past decade. The latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) Annual Report 2025 records a labour market that has remained resilient despite global economic uncertainty. The unemployment rate among persons aged 15 years and above declined to 3.1 per cent, urban female unemployment fell from 6.7 per cent in 2024 to 6.4 per cent in 2025, and the share of workers in regular wage and salaried employment increased from 22.4 per cent to 23.6 per cent. The survey also points to a gradual structural shift, with manufacturing accounting for a larger share of employment while agriculture's share has continued to decline. These trends suggest that India's labour market is becoming more diversified and that employment opportunities are gradually improving.
These developments deserve attention because they reflect more than short-term fluctuations. They indicate sustained improvements in labour market conditions and provide policymakers with evidence that employment patterns are evolving in line with broader structural changes in the economy. Yet they also raise an equally important question.
Do India's labour statistics tell us whether women are becoming economically secure, or do they primarily tell us whether women are participating in the labour market?
The distinction is significant because the Periodic Labour Force Survey was designed with a specific objective. It is India's principal statistical instrument for measuring employment and unemployment. Following its redesign in January 2025, the survey now generates monthly, quarterly and annual estimates of the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR) and Unemployment Rate (UR) for both rural and urban India, providing policymakers with more frequent and comprehensive labour market information. These indicators are indispensable.
They tell us how many people are participating in the labour force, how many are employed and how many are actively seeking work. They help governments identify employment trends, monitor sectoral shifts, compare labour market outcomes across states and evaluate the impact of policy interventions. Without the PLFS, evidence-based labour policy would be significantly weaker. But no statistical system is designed to answer every policy question.
The PLFS measures labour market participation. It was not designed to assess whether employment provides stable incomes, long-term financial resilience or broader economic security. Those are related questions, but they are not identical. This distinction is often overlooked in public debate.
A woman employed in a regular salaried position with a written contract, paid leave and social security benefits is recorded as employed. So is a woman engaged in self-employment with irregular earnings or working in a household enterprise. Both contribute to labour force participation statistics because both are economically active. Yet the financial stability, employment security and long-term opportunities associated with these forms of work can differ considerably. Recognising this difference does not diminish the value of India's labour statistics. On the contrary, it highlights the importance of interpreting them within the context for which they were designed.
The redesigned PLFS itself reflects this broader understanding of labour markets. Beyond the headline indicators, the survey now reports information on employment status, industry, occupation, hours worked, earnings and selected conditions of employment, including the availability of written job contracts, paid leave and social security among regular wage and salaried workers. These additions provide a richer picture of employment conditions than headline participation rates alone and strengthen the survey's usefulness for labour market analysis. Even so, important dimensions of women's economic lives remain outside its scope.
The survey cannot measure unpaid care responsibilities within households, access to childcare, household financial resilience, asset ownership or the long-term economic effects of career interruptions. These issues require complementary evidence from other official datasets and administrative sources. As India's labour policy evolves, this distinction becomes increasingly important.
For many years, policy focused primarily on creating employment and expanding labour market participation. Today's priorities are broader. They include improving employment quality, expanding formalisation, strengthening social protection, enhancing productivity and increasing women's participation in higher-value sectors of the economy. Measuring progress towards these objectives requires more than employment statistics alone.
The strength of the PLFS lies in providing robust, nationally comparable evidence on labour market outcomes. The next stage of policy analysis should build on that foundation by interpreting labour market indicators alongside other official evidence on social protection, care work and employment conditions. Doing so would provide a more complete understanding of women's economic progress without expecting a single survey to measure every aspect of economic wellbeing.
What India's Labour Statistics Measure and Why That Matters
The quality of public policy depends on the quality of public statistics. In the labour market, decisions on employment generation, skill development, social protection and fiscal allocation all begin with one question: what do the data tell us? In India, that question is answered primarily through the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO), which has become the country's principal source of official labour market statistics.
The PLFS was introduced in 2017 to provide regular and nationally comparable estimates of employment and unemployment. Recognising the need for more frequent labour market information, the Government redesigned the survey from January 2025. The revised framework now produces monthly, quarterly and annual estimates of the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR) and Unemployment Rate (UR) for both rural and urban India. The change also aligns India's reporting cycle with international statistical practice and enables policymakers to monitor labour market developments much more closely than before. These changes represent an important step in strengthening India's statistical system.
A labour market that employs more than half a billion people cannot be understood through occasional surveys alone. Monthly and quarterly estimates make it easier to identify emerging trends, evaluate the impact of policy interventions and respond more quickly to economic shocks. They also improve transparency by providing a continuous picture of changes in employment across sectors, regions and demographic groups. The PLFS, however, was designed with a specific purpose.
Its primary role is to measure labour market outcomes. It estimates how many people are participating in the labour force, how many are employed, how many are unemployed and how employment is distributed across industries, occupations and employment categories. The survey also collects information on earnings, hours worked and selected conditions of employment, including whether regular wage and salaried workers have written contracts, paid leave and access to social security benefits. These indicators provide an essential foundation for labour policy.
They allow governments to assess whether employment is expanding, whether unemployment is increasing or declining, which sectors are creating jobs and how employment patterns differ between rural and urban India. Without this evidence, policymaking would rely far more heavily on assumptions than on measurable outcomes. Yet the growing importance of the PLFS has also led to a subtle shift in how its findings are interpreted.
Labour market indicators are increasingly used as shorthand for broader economic progress, particularly in discussions on women's employment. Improvements in labour force participation are often presented as evidence of improving economic empowerment. While the two are related, they are not identical. Employment statistics can tell us whether women are working. They cannot, by themselves, tell us whether work has improved their long-term economic security.
That distinction does not weaken the value of the PLFS. On the contrary, it highlights the importance of using the survey for the purpose it was designed to serve. As labour policy expands beyond employment generation to include formalisation, productivity and social protection, the evidence base must also expand. The next section examines why labour market participation, although indispensable, captures only one dimension of women's economic progress.
Participation Is Not the Same as Economic Security
The improvements recorded in the PLFS deserve recognition. Higher labour force participation, lower unemployment and an increase in regular wage and salaried employment indicate that India's labour market is moving in a positive direction. These are meaningful outcomes for an economy that has experienced significant structural change over the past decade. Yet labour market participation and economic security are not interchangeable concepts.
The PLFS measures whether an individual is working, seeking work or unemployed. It also provides information on employment status, earnings, hours worked and selected conditions of employment. These indicators are essential for understanding labour market performance. They do not, however, establish whether employment provides lasting financial security or economic resilience. The distinction becomes clearer when the data are examined more closely.
The 2025 PLFS shows that the proportion of workers in regular wage and salaried employment increased from 22.4 per cent in 2024 to 23.6 per cent in 2025, suggesting gradual formalisation of the labour market. At the same time, self-employment continues to account for a substantial share of total employment, particularly in rural India. The survey also reports improvements in average earnings across employment categories. Female regular salaried workers recorded an increase in average earnings from ₹17,126 in 2024 to ₹18,353 in 2025, while earnings among self-employed women rose from ₹5,861 to ₹6,374 over the same period. These trends indicate progress, but they also reveal significant differences in earning opportunities across forms of employment. (Press Information Bureau)
Employment status, therefore, matters as much as employment itself.
A woman employed in a regular salaried position with a written contract, paid leave and access to social security enters the labour market under very different conditions from a woman whose income depends on seasonal self-employment or informal work. Both are counted as employed in labour statistics, yet the predictability of their earnings, the risks they face and their access to employment benefits are unlikely to be the same.
The PLFS recognises this distinction by collecting information on the conditions of employment. The survey reports whether regular wage and salaried workers have written job contracts, paid leave and eligibility for social security benefits. It also captures earnings and hours worked, allowing researchers to examine dimensions of employment quality alongside labour market participation. These additions represent an important advance in India's labour statistics because they move beyond simple employment counts towards a richer understanding of work. Even with these improvements, employment statistics have clear boundaries.
They cannot measure whether women interrupt their careers because of caregiving responsibilities, whether households have sufficient financial resilience during periods of income loss, or whether employment leads to long-term economic mobility. These questions extend beyond labour market participation and require complementary evidence from other official datasets.
This is not a limitation of the PLFS. It reflects the principle that no single statistical instrument can capture every dimension of economic wellbeing.
As labour policy increasingly focuses on formalisation, productivity, social protection and inclusive growth, interpreting employment statistics in conjunction with other official evidence becomes essential. Labour market participation remains the starting point for understanding women's economic progress. It should not be the end of the analysis.
Towards a Broader Framework for Measuring Women's Economic Security
India's labour statistics do not need to be replaced. They need to be complemented.
The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) remains the country's most reliable instrument for measuring employment, unemployment and labour market participation. It provides policymakers with timely evidence on who is working, where employment is expanding and how labour market conditions are changing across sectors and regions. Those functions remain fundamental to labour policy. The challenge is that labour policy has evolved more rapidly than the indicators most often used to evaluate it.
Employment generation continues to be an important objective, but policy today also seeks to improve the quality of jobs, expand formalisation, strengthen social protection, raise productivity and increase women's participation in higher-value economic activities. Assessing progress towards these goals requires evidence that extends beyond labour force participation and unemployment rates. Fortunately, the statistical foundation for such an approach already exists.
The PLFS itself has become more comprehensive over time. In addition to measuring labour force participation and employment, it now reports information on earnings, hours worked, employment status and selected conditions of employment, including written job contracts, eligibility for paid leave and access to social security among regular wage and salaried workers. These additions provide valuable insights into the quality of employment and should receive greater attention in labour market analysis. At the same time, no single survey can capture every dimension of women's economic wellbeing.
Understanding economic security requires bringing together evidence from multiple official sources. The Time Use Survey, for example, measures the time women spend on unpaid domestic services and caregiving activities that influence their ability to participate in paid employment but fall outside the scope of labour force surveys. Administrative datasets such as the e-Shram database provide information on the coverage of informal workers, while the Gender Budget Statement shows how public expenditure is being directed towards programmes that support women's development and economic participation. Together, these datasets offer a more complete picture of the conditions shaping women's employment than any one source can provide.
This calls for a broader approach to measuring progress.
Rather than relying primarily on participation rates, labour policy should evaluate whether women are moving into more secure forms of employment, whether earnings are improving, whether access to social protection is expanding and whether barriers such as unpaid care responsibilities are being reduced over time. These indicators would not replace the PLFS. They would strengthen its policy relevance by connecting labour market outcomes with the broader objective of improving women's economic security.
India has already strengthened its labour statistics through the redesign of the PLFS and the introduction of more frequent labour market estimates. The next step is to make fuller use of this statistical ecosystem. Looking at employment, social protection and care responsibilities together would provide policymakers with a more complete understanding of women's position in the economy and a stronger basis for designing interventions that promote not only employment, but lasting economic security.
Conclusion
India's labour market has made measurable progress. The latest Periodic Labour Force Survey points to lower unemployment, an increase in regular wage and salaried employment, and continued structural changes in the economy. The expansion of the survey from 2025 has also strengthened India's statistical capacity by providing more frequent and detailed labour market information. Together, these developments offer policymakers a stronger evidence base for designing and evaluating employment policies.
The question, therefore, is not whether India's labour statistics are adequate. They are.
The more relevant question is whether they are being interpreted within the limits of what they are designed to measure.
The PLFS provides reliable evidence on labour market participation, employment, unemployment and selected conditions of work. These indicators remain indispensable for understanding how the labour market is changing. At the same time, employment is only one dimension of women's economic wellbeing. Economic security is also shaped by the stability of earnings, access to social protection, the burden of unpaid care work, opportunities for career progression and the ability to remain in productive employment throughout the life cycle. These outcomes cannot be fully understood through labour market indicators alone.
As India's policy priorities shift from increasing employment to improving the quality of employment, the way progress is assessed must also evolve. This does not require a new labour survey or a different statistical framework. It requires using the existing statistical system more effectively by interpreting the PLFS alongside complementary official datasets, including the Time Use Survey, administrative records on social protection and other government data that capture dimensions of work beyond labour market participation.
A broader evidence framework would also improve policy coordination. Labour market data could be assessed alongside information on childcare, skills, social security and gender-responsive public expenditure, helping policymakers understand not only whether more women are entering the workforce, but also whether they are able to remain in secure, productive and better-paid employment over time.
India's labour statistics already provide a robust foundation for labour market analysis. The next step is to build on that foundation by connecting employment outcomes with the wider conditions that shape women's economic lives. Doing so would allow labour policy to move beyond measuring participation alone and towards a more complete assessment of women's economic security one that reflects both the quantity and the quality of employment.