Context:

• India’s economic future depends on women’s inclusion. Today, women contribute only 18% to GDP, and nearly 196 million employable women remain outside the workforce.
• Despite labour force participation rising to 41.7%, only 18% of women are in formal jobs.
• Without making women’s opportunities visible, measurable, and actionable in every governance department, India risks losing trillions and falling short of its $30 trillion goal by 2047.
• This article highlights how India’s $30 trillion economic ambition depends on women’s inclusion, the role of the Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Index, and the urgent need for gender-disaggregated data and budgeting to drive systemic reforms and inclusive growth.

Women’s Economic Empowerment Index: A Gender Lens for Policy

• Uttar Pradesh has introduced India’s first Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Index.
  • It is a district-level tool that tracks women’s participation across five areas — jobs, education and skills, entrepreneurship, livelihood and mobility, and safety and infrastructure.
• Its real value lies in embedding a gender lens into governance, making gaps visible that usually remain hidden in broad health, economic, or infrastructure data.
• For example, insights from the transport sector revealed the low presence of women bus staff, prompting reforms in recruitment and infrastructure like women’s restrooms.
• The index also uncovers structural barriers — while women form over half of skilling programme enrolments, very few transition to entrepreneurship or secure credit.
• By highlighting these bottlenecks, the WEE Index moves the debate beyond participation numbers to systemic reforms, offering a model for inclusive policymaking.

Making Gender Data and Budgeting Universal

• To close India’s gender gap, gender-disaggregated data must be integrated into every department — from MSMEs to housing — and local governments must be trained to use it for action plans.
• Beyond basic counts, data should track women’s retention, leadership, re-entry, and job quality, especially after school and higher education where dropout rates are high.
• Equally vital is reimagining gender budgeting. Instead of limiting it to welfare schemes, every rupee spent across sectors like education, energy, and infrastructure should be viewed through a gender lens.
• Simply put, effective budgeting is impossible without measuring women’s inclusion.

Scaling the WEE Index for Inclusive Growth

• Uttar Pradesh’s WEE Index offers a replicable model for other States like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Telangana, which aim for trillion-dollar economies.
• By turning gender data into district-level action plans, States can align budgets, infrastructure, and programmes to close gender gaps.
• India’s response must shift from intent to systemic change — embedding a gender lens in governance at every level.
• The WEE Index is only the beginning, making the invisible visible and charting a path to bring women from the margins to the centre of India’s growth story.

Conclusion

• Closing gender gaps through better data, gender budgeting, and scalable frameworks like the WEE Index is essential to unlock India’s true economic potential by 2047.