What Works for Working Women? A Comparison of Female Labour Force Participation in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh

Commentary

 Indian Female Labour Force Participation (FLFP)—defined as the percentage of women who either worked or were seeking work in the time frame in question—has attracted considerable debate for a long time now (Bhalla, Bhasin, & Das, 2025; Kapsos, Bourmpoula, & Silberman, 2014). Whether it improves or declines, the fact remains that it is considerably low, with the latest figures standing at 41.7% for all-India (UP+SS) and at 35.6% (CWS) in 2023-24, whereas the world average stands at 48.7%(ILO, 2024) and that of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) at 67.1% for 2024 (OECD, 2024). The Usual Principle + Subsidiary Status (UP+SS) status timeframe for LFP is defined as those who were either working or were seeking or available for work for a ‘relatively long part’ of the year, which is at least for 30 days in a year, whereas the current weekly status (CWS) status timeframe limits the period in question to one hour per week (NSSO, MoSPI, 2024, p. 5). In the older Employment-Unemployment Survey before 2017, the usual principal status was defined by 183 days or more in a year (Ministry of Labour & Employment, 2020, p. 38).

It has engendered econometric, sociological, methodological and public policy debates, which have time and again tried to understand its determinants of fluctuations, and prescribe actions towards rectifying the gap of almost 40 percentage points vis-à-vis the male LFP (Bhalla, Bhasin, & Das, 2025; Sinha, 2025; Ravi & Kapoor, 2024). For a country like India whose competitive advantage lies in its demographic dividend, the low FLFP is a missed opportunity and has been noted as one of the fundamental areas of growth and improvement (Virmani, 2024; IMF, 2025).

Table 1: LFP in India, 2017-18 to 2023-24 (15 years and above) (rural+urban)

Source: (NSSO, MoSPI, 2024)

In this wide-ranging debate, often dominated by aggregates, particular focuses get compromised and the current paper is in response to this. Dwelling with a very specific focus on two top states in terms of their organized manufacturing sectors—Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh (National Statistics Office, MoSPI, 2024)—and deepening our enquiries into the specific industries of garment and textiles which have been called upon as the key industries for enhancing women’s employment in India (Joshi, Nag, Taneja, & Yadav, 2018; Johny & Thomas, 2024), we undertake a comparative analysis and draw policy directions which stand the chance of positively impacting the FLFP in these two states. This analysis is also drawn from the fact that compared to males, the female share in agriculture is almost double at 64.36%, whereas it is almost the same at ~11% in the manufacturing sector vis-à-vis males. This suggests that it may be the female populace of the country which drives its long anticipated and irregular structural transformation, in the Lewisian sense (NSSO, MoSPI, 2024, pp. A-172).

In this analysis, we utilize a number of official and recent data sets such as Periodic Labour Force Survey, Annual Survey of Industries, Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises along with policy documents from the respective states. The picture that emerges is substantiated with relevant research and reports.

Women Workers in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh: What Does the Data Show?

On aggregate, the situation in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh with regards to the FLFP is rather contrasting, with the former above the national average and the latter substantially lower than the national average. Table 2 below gives the gender wise LFP in both states according to UP+SS and CWS status for populations upward of 15 years of age in both rural and urban areas:

Table 2: LFP for States (rural + urban) for populations above 15 yrs of age

Source: (NSSO, MoSPI, 2024, p. Tab. 16)

Further, by broad status of employment, Tamil Nadu again leads in a higher share of regular waged or salaried and casual women workers than UP, and a lower share of the women in self-employment, suggesting a substantially higher degree of formalization of the economy than in UP (table 3).

Table 3: % distribution of women workers in UP+SS status by broad status in employment for states (rural+urban)

Source: (NSSO, MoSPI, 2024, p. table 19)

This engagement in the formal sectors, however, doesn’t necessarily translate into formal employment which is defined in India by having access to one of the following—access to paid leaves, access to social security benefits or a written job contract—or what has come to be known as the informalization of labour within the formal sectors (Mishra, 2025) . In Tamil Nadu, this informalization of employment characterizes 42% of the women workers vis-à-vis 38% of the women in Uttar Pradesh engaged in regular wage or salaried work (NSSO, MoSPI, 2024, p. table 36).

In terms of their sectoral decomposition, Tamil Nadu has 15.44% of the women by UP+SS status working in the broad manufacturing sector whereas UP has 6.87% of the usually working women, and their respective shares in agriculture are at 21.45% and 44.39% (NSSO, MoSPI, 2024, pp. A-172).

Moreover, to talk of the structure of the informal manufacturing sector in both the states, it has been noted that Uttar Pradesh is one of the largest contributors, across Indian states, to an informal manufacturing sector which has the highest share of female participation and UP leads right after West Bengal on this count (NSSO, MoSPI, 2024, pp. vii, 41, 45). Hence, within the broad informal manufacturing sector, Uttar Pradesh has 2129135 estimated enterprises whereas Tamil Nadu has 1294386 enterprises, a difference of almost a double (NSSO, MoSPI, 2024, p. A25).  

The burden of informalization on women in both the states is better understood by the share of women in the category of unpaid women family members. Thus, across rural and urban areas, the share of women in Uttar Pradesh as unpaid family members involved in the informal manufacturing sector is 61.79% whereas the same in Tamil Nadu is 41.5%. It is also to be noted that in Uttar Pradesh, the total engaged unpaid family members in informal manufacturing sector enterprises is almost double that of Tamil Nadu (table 4).

Table 4: Women Unpaid Family Members involved in Informal Manufacturing Sector in States (rural + urban/ hired worker establishments and own account enterprises)

(NSSO, MoSPI, 2024, p. A870)

To talk specifically of the textiles and the garment sector, let us look at its organized sector for both the states. Thus, broadly speaking, Tamil Nadu shows, irrespective of the gender, a lower degree of informalization than UP in that 91.42% of the workforce in the organized sector is directly recruited workers and the same stands at 75% for UP (National Statistics Office, MoSPI, 2024, p. tables 4a). Out of the total directly recruited workers, in Tamil Nadu, 48.44% are women workers and. Out of the total workers, 44.2% are women directly recruited workers (there may be more women in these subsectors qua those recruited by contractors, however, the data of the same is not available in Annual Survey of Industries). In Uttar Pradesh, the women directly recruited workers constitute a meagre 13% of the total workers and 17.64% of the total directly recruited workers. It must also be borne in mind that the textiles and garments organized manufacturing in Tamil Nadu vis-à-vis Uttar Pradesh is almost 2.5 times in terms of number of workers engaged, 5 times in terms of number of factories & 3.5 times in terms of GVA (National Statistics Office, MoSPI, 2024). Thus, Tamil Nadu’s better performance in terms of FLFP, generally, and on a sub-sectoral level, can be attributed to its higher industrial growth which translates into a better outcome for women workers too (table 5).

Table 5: Textiles and Garments Workers in TN and UP Organized Manufacturing Sector

Source: (National Statistics Office, MoSPI, 2024, p. Tables 4a)

Thus, the aggregates suggest a better scenario of FLFP in Tamil Nadu vis-à-vis Uttar Pradesh, along with a stronger tendency of ‘structural transformation’ with lesser share of women engaged in agriculture than in Uttar Pradesh and a substantially higher share of women workers in the manufacturing sector too. However, disaggregation reveals interesting details of the condition of women’s employment. On the one hand, although Tamil Nadu has a higher share of women workers engaged in the formal sector of the economy, the national tendency of informalization of work within the formal sector seems probable thereby too. On the other hand, the situation in Uttar Pradesh is more dire in terms of the burden of informalization on the women workforce where apart from a higher share in informal sectors, the nature of employment thereby is that of being engaged as unpaid family members in enterprises. Taking the case of the formal textile and garment industry in both the states, it appears that Tamil Nadu leads against Uttar Pradesh wherein the higher share of directly employed women workers implies a strong correlation with the larger size of the industry itself. In what proceeds, we draw lessons in a comparative sense and a non-comparative sense amongst the states to highlight means which have a positive bearing on FLFP.

What Works for Boosting FLFP?

Apart from the obvious—that the increased FLFP in Tamil Nadu is correlated with its larger industrial size along with its stronger export-orientation—there are other factors which have contributed towards such a performance. Primarily, these have been attributed to certain state-led reforms and schemes. Ranging from the most-immediately conducive to the more-intermediately conducive, these include reforms within the states Factories Act in 2017 which removed the night shift restrictions on women’s employment; the “Thozhi” hostel program which enables factories to run hostels which provide for women workers accommodations, inviting a high degree to migrant workforce; the Vidyal Payanam Scheme which provides for free travel for women in state-run buses; skill development and educational scholarships which boost human capital development particularly targeted towards women, amongst others (Chowdhary & Mondal, 2025; Sundarajan; Anand & Kaur, 2022).  

However, we must also mention that though these reforms have had a bearing on boosting FLFP, they have often come under scrutiny in also leading to a lot of excesses against the rights of women workers. The examples from the textiles and garment industries in Tamil Nadu abound. Thus, it has entailed more vulnerability towards sexual and gender based violence and harassment, a working condition toll which reflects on negative health outcomes, prison-like metaphors for women hostels, union-busting, and increased burden of patriarchal control over women’s lives through collusion of the family and factory management—all of which is often termed in the discourse of forced labour (ILO Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work Branch, 2017; Mishra, Joseph, Gangadhara, & Lobo, 2023; SLD, AFWA & BHRRC, 2022; Udhayakumar, 2018). Moreover, when one enquires even further into the reasons for why women workers are not within the labour force in Tamil Nadu, it appears that the primary reason is that of childcare and household duties which, by proxy, reflects those provisions for creches, canteen, etc. within the Factories Act is not adhered to or implemented, properly (Chowdhary & Mondal, 2025, p. 9).

An interesting point to be noted, however, is that although Uttar Pradesh, at least in terms of easing the legal restricting to employing women by the factories and in terms of promoting women workers employment by factories by incentivizing and subsidizing certain costs (Anand & Kaur, 2022; Handlooms, Handicrafts, Textiles and Khadi Dept., , 2019; Govt. of Uttar Pradesh, 2022), seems to be much similar to Tamil Nadu, yet the data reflects a problem of the intent missing the mark. Relatedly, assuming a certain similarity in policy and legal situation in both the states, it is worth speculating that the difference may lie in the fabric of patriarchy in both the states and comparing the same on a number of indicators, an interesting trend appears. 

While on metrics such as the number of people who want more sons than daughters as their offsprings, Uttar Pradesh fares decidedly worse than Tamil Nadu, the latter reports a higher % share of women who have faced violence during pregnancy, a higher percentage of women reporting physical and non-physical violence committed on them by their husbands, and a higher suicide incidence amongst women, than the former. Nonetheless, on counts of women having decision power in the household, crimes against women, and dowry deaths reported, Uttar Pradesh seems worse than Tamil Nadu (Oxfam India, 2020a; Oxfam India, 2020b). It is also worth noting that the average per person emoluments that the persons engaged within the organized textile and garments industry in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu receive are INR 2.69 lakh and 2.15 lakh (National Statistics Office, MoSPI, 2024, p. tables 4a).

Conclusion

Our analysis shows that the structure of female labour force participation in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu differ starkly with a higher aggregate record of the same in the latter with a higher share in the organized sector. On the other hand, both states record a distinct pattern of informalization of the women workers within them. In Uttar Pradesh, this is predominated in the informal sector and most negatively as unpaid family members. whereas in Tamil Nadu in the form of informal and precarious terms of engagement within the organized sector. The case of organized textiles and garments industry also indicates that the inclusion of women workers in the organized sector does not necessarily translate into a better social outcome. However, there is merit in the argument that inasmuch as just ‘structural transformation’ is concerned with the shifting of workers from agriculture to the manufacturing sector, Tamil Nadu’s better performance is due to a starkly bigger size of the organized manufacturing sector on a number of counts vis-à-vis Uttar Pradesh.

Dwelling further deeper, when the state policies and the social fabric is analysed in both the states, it becomes apparent that in the policies which are more immediately concerned with organized industrial engagement of women workforce, there is not much of a difference between the two states, and the social situation may not be so starkly different in one state vis-à-vis the other. What this suggests is that a greater impact may be exercised by policies such as free public transportation for women, and human capital development targeted towards women in Tamil Nadu.