Female Workforce Participation in North-Eastern Region: An Overview

The female workforce participation means the rate of percentage of female engaged in the total working population of a state or country. Women constitute an important part of the workforce of all over the world and India. According to the Registrar General of India, the work participation rate for women was 25.51 per cent in 2011 and 25.6 percent in 2001. This is an improvement from 22.3 per cent in 1991 and 19.67 per cent in 1981. The two important aspects that is required to be mentioned here that while there has been an improvement in the work participation rate of women, it continues to be substantially less in comparison to the work participation rate of men. In 2011, the work participation rate of men was 53.26 per cent and 51.8 percent in 2001. Secondly, there seems to be a rural-urban divide in so far as work participation of women is concerned. In the context of North-East Region, the role of female in the workplace has been expanding due to socio-economic and political-legal changes. All states of North-Eastern are significantly different from each another in respect of their socio-economic conditions. The northeastern states are predominantly agricultural states. So, women in the region mainly engage in agriculture and its allied activities. The infrastructure facilities like supply of input, marketing, institutional credit an