Author:

Dr. Jayasri Indiran

• Research
• Quality Education,Gender Equality,Decent Work and Economic Growth,Reduced Inequalities
• 25-11-2025

On the waves of the Sustainable Development Goals and connected Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, it is necessary to understand women empowerment as a contributory factor of the national per capita growth. Generally, women empowerment is an issue of various dilemmas leading to debates across the globe. If we ask if women empowerment is needed, there will be responses, equally positive and negative in nature.  The irony of the issue is, even women have both of these emotions concerned with the empowerment of women.

Women Empowerment is expected to be not only in policies and laws, but also in the minds of people, their traditions and culture. The way people look at women and take them ‘for granted’ need to be changed. As the country buzzes with a mission of empowered India through empowered women, by the Nari-Sakthi initiatives, it is necessary to address the basic issues of this aspect, right from a small unit of a society to larger establishments.

In this context, The Gender Centre at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) has released a Women Empowerment Index (Counter View, 2024) that covers four major areas of empowerment and their contributions in uplifting the status and existence of women across the country. They are,

i) Decision-making autonomy and physical mobility,

ii) Control over financial resources and economic empowerment,

iii)  Educational and informational empowerment, and

iv) Work-life balance (Counter View, 2024).

The report highlights the distinct challenges across the country especially, in 705 districts. As reported by the National Family Health Survey NFHS-4 and NFHS-5 (Counter View, 2024) for women aged 15 to 49 reveals that those challenges range from limited access to education and poor economic conditions to difficulties in achieving a sustainable standard of life including work-life balance.

The key findings of the survey are:

Nari Shakti

In the background of the aforementioned, let’s understand some of the initiatives taken by the Government of India with an aim to fulfil the agenda ‘Nari Shakti’, (GOI, 2024). 

‘Mission Shakti’ (GOI, 2024) is a scheme focusing on women safety, security and empowerment by the Government of India. It insists on making women equal partners in nation-building through convergence and citizen-ownership. This mission comprises of two sub-schemes such as, ‘Sambal’ and ‘Samarthya’.

‘Sambal’ is a sub-scheme that takes care of their safety and security through One Stop Centre (OSC), Women Helpline (WHL) and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) initiatives with Nari-Adalat.

‘Samarthya’ fully encompasses initiatives for women empowerment that includes:

State Level Initiatives

The central level initiatives have given the state level initiatives a wider spectrum in terms of women empowerment as follows:

In short, employment status and economic freedom are the two major forces of women empowerment. Addressing this, in March 2025, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Missouri conducted a Round Table Discussion on Improving Female Workforce Participation in India. It also recorded India’s Female Labor Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) at 41.7% (PLFS 2023-24) against 22% (2017-18), showing nearly 20% raise in women’s participation in the country's economy. The female unemployment rate decreased from 5.6% in 2017-18 to 3.2% in 2023-24. In the same period, self-employment among women increased from 52% to 67% and the number of women-owned MSMEs also nearly doubled to 26%. Thus, in a very short period of time (4 years), the march towards women empowerment by India, has been directed towards new heights.

Let’s wait and watch for what more will come in the long run!

References:

Adham, K. (2024). ADB supports housing finance in Uzbekistan. Asian Development Bank.

Bizz Buzz. (2024). GreenKraft. Industree Foundation.

Counter View. (2024). 67.5% districts empowered women in decision-making, mobility: IIM-A study. Hindustan Times.

Directorate of Information Technology, Government of Tripura. (2024). Tripura Start-Up Policy 2024.

ETTravel World. (2024). Empowering women through sustainable tourism: Intrepid launches 'Holy City Rickshaws in Varanasi. The Economic Times. 

Government of Andhra Pradesh. (2024). Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Policy 2023 (Fiscal Incentives). National Single Window System.

Government of India. (2024). Mahila Coir Yojana. myScheme.

Government of India. (2024). Mission Shakti Guidelines. Ministry of Women and Child Development.

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