More degrees, fewer jobs: Why India’s educated women are still shut out of the workforce
India has taught its women to dream, study, and graduate with shining degrees. What it has not done is teach its economy to take them seriously. A surge in women’s higher education is ostentatiously boasted as a victory. The numbers are worth applauding. We do not see campuses brimming with male students. But is the reality outside the universities a rosy picture? Unfortunately, no, in fact, it is lugubrious. For a majority of women, education is not leading to employment. According to the Her Path, Her Power report by TeamLease Degree Apprenticeship, only 34–37 per cent of graduating women in India are considered employable. The numbers can sting you harder. The gulf between educational attainment and labour market absorption has become one of the most damaging bottlenecks in India’s growth story. The question is why is job readiness remaining elusive for women when they are earning degrees in record numbers?
A pipeline that educates women, then abandons them
Women account for nearly 48 percent of India’s population, yet contribute just 18 percent to GDP, the TeamLease report notes. The labour market absorbs men with far greater ease, while women face sharper scrutiny, fewer second chances, and limited career mobility. The result is a paradox: rising qualifications alongside stagnant participation.
Sectoral fault lines expose a gendered job market
The employability divide becomes starker when broken down by sector, according to TLDA’s findings. In IT and software, only about 36 percent of women graduates are deemed employable. Banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) perform marginally better at 40 percent. While retail and sales stand at 42 percent.Healthcare is the exception. With women’s employability ranging between 55 and 60 percent. No wonder, the sector is renowned for its structured training, predictable skill requirements, and clearly demarcated roles. Engineering, however, remains the most exclusionary space. Female employability here drops down to just 22 percent. It showcases the cracks in technical education, workplace culture, and industry readiness to absorb women at scale. Or maybe, the prevalent stereotype that women cannot be good with technology is partly the reason for this existing gap.
The hidden cost of employment: Pay gaps and power gaps
Employment does not guarantee equity. We are in 2026, and while celebrating great discoveries like artificial intelligence, what we are battling for is equal pay for women. The TeamLease report highlights that women earn between 20 and 35 percent less than men for similar roles, with the disparity widening to nearly 28 percent at leadership levels.Women have been continually facing this discrimination in the workplace. Over time, the cost of staying outweighs the promise of rising. Many exit not because they lack ambition, but because the system makes persistence punitive.
Urban India’s uncomfortable truth
India’s Female Labour Force Participation Rate stands at around 31.7 per cent, well below the global average of nearly 50 per cent. In urban India, participation falls further to about 22 per cent, despite higher education levels and better access to jobs, as cited in the TeamLease analysis.The contradiction is glaring. Education is rising. Workforce participation is not. Degrees are no longer functioning as bridges; they are becoming waiting rooms.
Why women vanish before leadership
Corporate India illustrates the attrition vividly. Women make up about 31 percent of entry-level roles. By the time executive positions are reached, their representation drops to roughly 17 percent, with only about 20 percent presence on corporate boards, according to TeamLease data.Medicine mirrors this pattern. While more women are graduating with MBBS degrees, they represent only around 17 percent of practising allopathic doctors. The system does not lack female talent. It loses it, deliberately and repeatedly.
An economic failure disguised as educational success
India’s challenge is not educating women. AISHE data shows that battle is being won. The real failure lies in what follows.We cannot celebrate the enrollment of women by sidelining them from the job market; that definitely is not empowerment. Without remoulding hiring practises, pay structures, skill alignment, and leadership pathways, the promises will remain unfulfilled.This is not only a gender issue but also an economic one. India cannot afford to keep producing qualified women only to lock them out of power, pay, and progress.Most importantly, degrees alone do not drive growth; opportunity does. And until the economy learns that lesson, India’s education success story will remain unfinished and deeply unequal.
