Lockdowns and female labour force participation: the curious case of India

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, employment opportunities dried up owing to lockdowns and the economic fallout was felt by men and women alike. In this paper, we explore the impact of the pandemic-induced lockdowns on the female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) in India overall and in rural and urban areas taken separately. We use a panel dataset of 15 Indian states over the period 1991–2021 and estimate a dynamic GMM model to study the pandemic effect. Our results show that FLFPR that had historically shown a declining trend increased during the pandemic years despite lockdowns and job cuts. We find that there was an increase of 2.5% in FLFPR during the pandemic years. Our results hold even after controlling for other determinants of FLFPR such as per capita income, school education, fertility rate and male unemployment rate. Our results are consistent across rural and urban settings taken together and considered separately. Our findings suggest that economic distress drove women to take up low-paying jobs, resulting in the feminization of poverty.