Increasing the women's participation in the country's workforce could add Rs 46 lakh crore ($700 billion) to India's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025, according to a study.
Bridging the gender gap will boost the economic activity in the country, resulting in incremental GDP growth of 1.4% per year, said a study by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI).
"About 70 percent of the increase would come from raising India's female labour-force participation rate from 31 percent at present to 41 percent in 2025. This would bring 68 million more women into the economy over this period," said the report.
Currently, the contribution of women to India's GDP stands at 17%, which is much lower than the global average of 31%.
"The Indian economy will obviously gain if we bridge the gender gap in the workplace, but this gap cannot be plugged if we don't consider gender equality in society and change our social attitudes and unconscious bias towards women," Moneycontrol.com quoted Rajat Gupta, Director, McKinsey & Company India, as saying.
According to report titled 'The Power of Parity: Advancing Women's Equality in India', the time spent by Indian women on unpaid work is nearly 10 times higher than the time spent by men on such work.
"If this unpaid work could be valued and compensated, it would contribute USD 0.3 trillion (Rs 20 lakh crore) to India's economic output," the report noted.
Besides, India's GDP will see a contribution of $2.9 trillion from women in 2025, if they "play an identical role in labour markets as men" the report added.
