Gender and Development

India’s Gender Budget grew 37% in a single year. Women’s share of the workforce grew too — but almost all of that growth showed up in one place: unpaid or low-paid farm work. This article covers how India measures gender and development, and why the two numbers tell different stories.

Gender and Development, By the Numbers

IndEco0074

₹4.49L Cr

Gender Budget, 2025-26 (+37%)

41.7%

Female LFPR, 2023-24 (up from 37.0%)

34.6%

Rural female LFPR vs. 22.2% urban

8.86%

Share of total Union Budget, 2025-26

The catch: most of the recent rise in women’s workforce participation is concentrated in low-paid, often unpaid, farm work — not formal, higher-paying jobs.

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Timeline

• 2005-06: India introduces the Gender Budget Statement in the Union Budget.
• 2022-23: Female labour force participation rate (LFPR) stands at 37.0%, per the PLFS.
• 2023-24: Female LFPR rises to 41.7%.
• 2025-26: The Gender Budget allocation rises to ₹4.49 lakh crore, up 37.25% from the year before.

Must Know

• India introduced the Gender Budget Statement (GBS) in the 2005-06 Union Budget — a fiscal tool tracking how government spending affects women, not a separate budget for them.
• The GBS has three parts: Part A (schemes 100% allocated to women), Part B (schemes with at least 30% earmarked for women), and Part C, added in 2024-25, covering schemes with less than 30% allocation to women.
• The 2025-26 Gender Budget allocation rose to ₹4.49 lakh crore — a 37.25% jump from ₹3.27 lakh crore the year before.
• That’s 8.86% of the entire Union Budget in 2025-26, up from 6.8% in 2024-25.

Good to Know

• India’s female labour force participation rate rose from 37.0% (2022-23) to 41.7% (2023-24), per the Periodic Labour Force Survey.
• Rural female LFPR (34.6%) runs well above urban (22.2%) — driven largely by women’s participation in agriculture.
• India’s female Worker Population Ratio rose from 24.6% in 2022 to 29.8% in 2025.
• Much of the rural rise is specifically agricultural: the share of rural women in farming work rose from 20.6% (early 2019) to 26.5% (late 2024).

Test Yourself

Please wait…

1. In which Union Budget year did India introduce the Gender Budget Statement (GBS)?

2000-01

2005-06

2010-11

2014-15

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Great to Know

• A rising participation rate doesn’t automatically mean rising quality of work. Most of the recent growth is concentrated in low-paid, often unpaid, agricultural and informal work — not formal, higher-paying jobs.
• Adding Part C to the Gender Budget Statement in 2024-25 mattered analytically: it means the government now also tracks schemes where women get less than 30% of the benefit, giving a fuller picture of spending, not just a showcase of women-friendly schemes.
• “Gender and development” is a paired term for a reason: it assumes causality runs both ways. Better development lifts women’s outcomes, but including women more fully in the economy also lifts overall growth — that framing shapes how these schemes get designed.
• For the political-representation side of this picture — reserved legislative seats, not economic participation — see IndSoc0009 — The Women’s Reservation Bill: From 1996 to the 2023 Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam.