This is an extract from the chapter “The inclusion of women in India’s green economy” of a recent report “Building a Green Economy for Viksit Bharat: New Opportunities for Jobs, Growth and Sustainability in India” by Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).
Introduction
Why must we think of women’s role in a green economy? Literature has consistently pointed towards the positive connection between greater female participation and economic returns. Data suggests that in the Asia-Pacific region alone, increasing women’s representation in the workforce could enhance their collective annual GDP by USD 4.5 trillion (INR 391.5 lakh crore) in 2025, representing a 12 per cent rise compared to the status quo. Women will also play a crucial role in achieving India’s target of achieving a GDP of USD 30 trillion (INR 2,610 lakh crore) by 2047, which will require a female workforce of 400 million.
In addition to overall gains to the GDP, evidence shows that enhanced women’s participation in a sector significantly boosts productivity. For instance, a recent study in India’s formal manufacturing sector found that a 1 per cent increase in gender diversity in the workforce is associated with a 2.9 per cent rise in labour productivity, and a 2.7 per cent boost in total factor productivity, suggesting that greater female inclusion could markedly enhance manufacturing output.
Despite the vitality of women’s contribution to economic growth, female representation in India’s workforce reflects low participation rates and high wage disparity. India’s female labour force participation rate (FLFPR1) currently stands at 41.7 per cent, as opposed to the male LFPR of 78.8 per cent (MoSPI 2024). Apart from overall participation, women also remain underrepresented in leadership positions. As of 2023, women held only 18.3 per cent of senior leadership roles, a modest increase from 16.6 per cent in 2016. In key managerial personnel (KMP) positions, women’s representation is even lower, at just over 10 per cent of managerial positions.
On wage disparity, data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation shows that salaried male workers earned ~30 per cent more than salaried female workers, and male daily wage workers earn 50 per cent more than female daily wage workers. Self-employed male workers also earned a whopping ~190 per cent more than their female counterparts.
With this understanding of women’s workforce participation in India, we examine the nature of women’s participation across the identified green value chains today, and offer recommendations to improve their inclusion for a better economy. The report analyses the roles women typically occupy within the green sector, the barriers they face in advancing their status, and the potential opportunities that can be leveraged to improve their status.
Nature of women’s work in the energy transition sector
The energy transition to cleaner fuels creates jobs in the deployment of clean technologies, component and equipment manufacturing, and other supporting industries. The job roles encompass engineering and technical positions (project management, automation, and maintenance), strategic and business functions (business development, sales, marketing, and strategic planning), regulatory compliance, health and safety, asset performance, and management, among others.
Women’s work in the energy transition sector is characterised by low participation as compared to men, predominance in non-technical roles and administrative roles, and low application rates to engineering positions. A survey by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) stated women constitute 32 per cent of the workforce in renewable energy, compared to 22 per cent in the oil and gas sectors. While more women are beginning to find opportunities in RE, these roles are mostly clustered in non-technical roles. Women occupy 45 per cent of administrative positions but represent only 28 per cent of STEM jobs in technical, managerial, and policy-making roles.
India lacks comprehensive data on women’s participation in the renewable energy sector, highlighting the urgent need for better reporting mechanisms. There are currently no sectorspecific surveys conducted to understand employment and women’s participation in the energy transition sectors. Further, disaggregated data across various renewable sectors is not reflected under the National Classification of Occupations.
The limited available data shows that women’s representation in the workforce as a whole is low, and most women work in non-technical roles. A survey of nine companies in the rooftop solar sector revealed that women make up only 11 per cent of the workforce, lower than the global RE average. Here, women work on business development (18 per cent) and design phases (34 per cent). Other frequent site visits or on-site work phases of construction and commissioning, operations and maintenance, constitute a mere 3 per cent and 1 per cent, respectively.
Similarly, in deployment-based sectors such as ground-mounted solar and wind deployment, which include both office and off-site roles, the representation of women differs across phases, with more women working in office-based roles than in off-site roles. From discussions with ground-mounted solar and wind developers, we understand that this preference is because of safety concerns in remote areas.
Based on consultations with stakeholders, the key barriers for a low participation rate include:
- Safety and security concerns at project sites, especially in utility scale solar and wind, which are often in remote locations.
- A workplace culture that overlooks the distinct needs of women, such as provision for flexible work arrangements, availability of child care, and so on.
- Entrenched social dynamics that constrain women’s professional growth, with restrictive family structures and limited personal autonomy. These compel many to prioritise domestic responsibilities over career advancement.
- Mobility restrictions severely limit women’s market participation, particularly in sales roles, which require travelling to remote areas and various geographies.
- Insufficient human resource policies beyond legally mandated requirements to encourage and support women in the corporate setting.
Further, companies also face challenges in creating supportive workplace environments for women and in attracting female applicants for technical positions. These include:
- Tight Internal Rate of Return (IRR) expectations by investors restrict the perceived expenses required for making the workplace inclusive, especially in remote areas where investments in additional security measures are required.
- The hiring of women is also a challenge. While many enterprises are eager to hire women for technical roles, particularly in manufacturing and production, the shortage of skilled and working women in STEM fields in India presents a major challenge. Companies surveyed in the rooftop solar sector highlighted a low application rate of women to positions requiring engineering backgrounds.
While centralised office roles have low female participation rates, opportunities are increasingly visible in decentralised and local energy ecosystems, owing to their flexible work arrangements and lower barriers to entry, which might align better with women’s existing responsibilities. For example, a study across 18 states shows that adoption of decentralised renewable energy technologies such as solar-based silk reelers, refrigerators, etc., increases income for almost 90 per cent of users. For women, apart from income, there is also a reported increase in agency, knowledge, and skills; higher mobility; and greater participation in community and social events. This shows that clean technology applications not only advance economic empowerment for women, but also catalyse broader social transformation by addressing structural inequalities and creating pathways for women’s holistic development and leadership. Women also play a vital role in self-help groups (SHG), advocating for sustainable energy adoption, and empowering rural communities through distributed renewable energy (DRE) solutions
Nature of women’s work in the circular economy sector
The nature of women’s work in the circular economy sector can be described as clustered in the early stages of the value chain, i.e. waste-pickers and segregators, who are also the lowest paid. We know this from our stakeholder consultations, and there are estimates which suggest that 1.5 million women work as waste-pickers in India, making up 49 per cent of the total sector. The same estimates also suggest that women earn 33 per cent less than men do in the same job. Further, a majority of all women waste-pickers in India come from marginalised (dalit and adivasi) backgrounds, which means they face several issues at the intersection of their caste and gender identities, like systemic exploitation through patriarchy, hazardous working conditions, and caste-based stigma.
Most women work in value chains like solid waste management, plastic waste recycling, biodegradable waste processing and e-waste recycling, and their involvement is limited to the collection and sorting of waste. This is because raw waste, especially before it is collected, is often seen as a domestic product. Women, by virtue of their role in socially reproductive labour at home, are therefore responsible for collecting and then sorting this waste into different usable components that can be further processed and recycled. Their male colleagues who work in the same industry usually take up activities that provide better financial compensation—waste aggregation, processing, and selling. Even when women enter the more advanced stages of the value chain, in processing and recycling factories, they are primarily engaged as daily wage labourers and remain as informal workers, i.e., outside of government labour regulations.
There are also inherent biases in the nature of the value chain itself that result in more women working in certain value chains over others. We have learnt that in value chains that require literal heavy lifting roles, such as used cooking oil (UCO) and end-of-life vehicle (ELV) value chains, systemic barriers often limit women’s participation in all parts of the value chain, including collection roles. These barriers exist in the form of requirements to perform physically demanding tasks, such as heavy lifting and transporting barrels from collection sources to trucks in the UCO value chain, to the need to tow or drive vehicles to Registered Vehicle Scrapping Facilities (RVSFs) in the ELV value chain. Traditional perceptions labelling physical tasks as ‘men’s work’ have historically restricted women’s access to these segments, despite women’s proven capabilities in handling demanding work environments and the mechanisation of these tasks. We also know from evidence in the bio-economy and naturebased solutions sectors that women are predominantly present in the stages of production that require them to do hard manual labour and lift heavy weights.
Several experts from the industry have told us about the myriad challenges that exist for women currently involved in the circular economy sector. These include:
- Many women workers in the informal waste sector, like in e-waste, endure labourintensive and unsanitary working conditions, often working in urban slums and near landfill sites, exposing them to significant health and safety risks.
- In value chains such as plastic waste management, men can avail better equipment and transportation like tricycles, small tippers, and carts, whereas women are significantly constrained in the equipment they can use, thereby predominantly collecting recyclables using bags and sacks.
- Several activities where waste is generated in bulk are conducted in remote locations and sometimes late at night, making the working environment unsafe for women workers. For instance, one stakeholder from the municipal solid waste value chain gave us examples of large concerts and sports matches as events that pose these problems.
Access the report here.
