India needs 8% growth, more female workers to become developed nation: World Bank economist

New Delhi: India needs to grow at nearly 8 percent to become a developed country by 2047 and such rapid growth is not possible at the current low level of female participation in the workforce, World Bank senior economist Dhruv Sharma has said.

“India has aspirations to become a high-income country by 2047. That will naturally require a faster pace of growth; it is growing around 6-6.5 percent. In order to get to high-income country, it needs to grow closer to 8 percent. And you can’t get there if a large part of your workforce – females – are not participating,” Sharma said at the release of the World Bank’s India Development Update report on October 3 in New Delhi.

“So for India to go from 6 percent to 8 percent and become a high-income country, you need to get the female labour force participation rate to be higher.”

In its India Development Update report, the World Bank noted that while the male and female Worker Population Ratio (WPR) had increased by 1.4 percentage points and 2.3 percentage points, respectively, in January-March 2023 from the year-ago period, the increase in WPR for women was “primarily driven by an increase in the share of women in unpaid work”, as per data from the government’s Periodic Labour Force Survey reports. (Agencies)