Women at work: Industrial jobs can tackle a key gender imbalance

Ola has announced that its electric scooter factory will be run entirely by women. Its Future Factory plans to employ at least 10,000 women, which would make it the largest all-women factory in the world. This is an entirely heartening move. While women have been employed in specific labour-intensive industries like garments, they are under-represented in the auto industry, and are still barely 12% of the industrial workforce.

Factory jobs are an escape from traditional gender roles, a basis for economic independence, a chance to see oneself in a larger collective. Women’s paid work also has ripple benefits for their families and communities. In the West, World War II brought women into factories and shipyards. A freedom that could not be snuffed out again. China’s female factory workers are more mobile, and aspirational than before. Even women in so-called sweatshops often speak of them as emancipatory. In India, companies like Kirloskar and HUL have created all-women plants.

India’s already low female labour force participation has declined over the last decade, at all levels of age, income and education – but particularly for rural women. This is socially awful and economically hugely costly. If Indian women had the same work participation rates as men, Oxfam estimates a 43% rise in GDP. In a situation of bone-deep discrimination, women must be actively prioritised in employment for any hope of real equality.