India’s economic ambitions need better gender data

Women contribute just 18% to India’s GDP today, but continuing with business-as-usual means that trillions of dollars will be left on the table. India’s aspiration to become a $30 trillion economy by 2047 rests on a simple truth: inclusive growth cannot happen if half its population remains invisible in the data that drive policy and investment. Nearly 196 million employable women are outside the workforce. While the Female Labour Force Participation Rate has improved to 41.7%, only 18% of these women are in formal employment. The question is not just how India creates opportunities for women, but how it ensures that these opportunities are visible, measurable, and acted on across every department of governance.

A district-level tool

The launch of the Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Index by the Government of Uttar Pradesh — the first in India — offers a glimpse of what is possible. This district-level tool tracks women’s participation across five economic levers: employment; education and skilling; entrepreneurship; livelihood and mobility, and safety and inclusive infrastructure. Its significance lies beyond the index. It signals a shift toward embedding a gender lens in every dataset, every department, and every decision.

India produces multiple indices on health, economic well-being and infrastructure. Very few disaggregate this data by gender. Without this lens, gaps remain hidden. Without visibility, reforms stall. And without reforms, exclusion becomes entrenched.

When inequities become visible, action follows. In Uttar Pradesh’s transport sector for instance, data analysis of bus drivers and conductors in the State and the low percentage of women in this segment prompted the department to redesign recruitment strategies and address foundational infrastructure gaps such as women’s restrooms in bus terminals. These changes, while modest, are catalytic, and are unlikely to have occurred without gender-specific insights.

The WEE Index shows how such insights can be systematised. By mapping where women drop off — from school to skilling, skilling to work, or entrepreneurship to credit — it moves the conversation beyond participation rates to structural barriers. Consider this striking pattern: while women dominate (more than 50%) enrolment in Uttar Pradesh’s skilling programmes, they represent a fraction of registered entrepreneurs, with their access to credit being even more limited. This highlights not only participation gaps but also the systemic barriers to finance and enterprise support — data that can directly inform policy reform.

The need for data from every system

If India is serious about closing its gender gap at scale, gender-disaggregated data must become universal and normative. This requires integrating gender breakdowns into every departmental management information system — from micro, small and medium enterprises to transport to housing — and building the capacity of local governments to collect and use this data effectively to create effective gender action plans. It also calls for moving beyond surface-level counts to track retention, leadership, re-entry, and quality of employment, particularly at stages after Class 12 in school and post-graduation, where female dropout rates surge.

Equally important is the need for a rethink on gender budgeting. Too often, gender budgeting is confined to finance departments or specific women’s welfare schemes. True gender budgeting applies a gender lens to every rupee spent — across education, energy, infrastructure, and more. It is simple — you cannot budget for what you do not measure.

Help for States moving ahead

What Uttar Pradesh has piloted is a foundation that can be replicated and scaled. States such as Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Telangana have already set trillion-dollar economic goals. To achieve them, they must leverage their gender dividend. A robust framework such as the WEE Index can help States translate intent into implementation — turning data into district-wise gender action plans that guide budget allocations, infrastructure priorities and programmatic reforms.

India’s gender gap is not new, but India’s response to it must evolve. The solution would involve a fundamental change in how India sees, measures and responds to gender across every level of governance.

The WEE Index is not the finish line but the starting block. It makes visible what has long been invisible and offers a road map to move women from the margins to the mainstream of India’s growth story.

Pooja Sharma Goyal is the Founding CEO of The Udaiti Foundation. Vivek Kumar is Program Lead, The Udaiti Foundation