Data For India

What do women who are not in India’s workforce do? Read @akwaghmare Waghmare’s piece to find out: dataforindia.com/women-and-work…

There are roughly 400 million men and 200 million women in India's workforce. But the nature of work is materially different between men and women in the workforce. One of the principal differences between the way men and women work has to do with how they are paid. In Indian labour statistics, workers may be classified as salaried workers if they have a regular job and are paid monthly. Casual workers work on someone else's farm or non-farm enterprise and receive daily or periodic wages. The self-employed get paid from the profits of an enterprise. Among the self-employed, one category of workers work on household enterprises but get paid no wages. They are termed as "unpaid helpers in household enterprises". While some men do such unpaid work as well, women are twice as likely to be unpaid helpers. In comparison, less than half as many women are in salaried work. This means that more than one in three working women, or 70 million women, are doing economically productive work, but for no wages. These are women who work in a household enterprise that is engaged in crop cultivation, milk and livestock production, retail sale of food, or small-scale manufacturing, but do not get paid for their work. #Work #Women #Employment #LFPR #India #DataForIndia

Data Bytes brings you one chart about India every week, and the story behind the data. Subscribe to receive the next Data Byte, right in your inbox: dataforindia.com/data-bytes/#/p…

New Data Byte: Women's absence from India's workforce is most evident in their 20s, by @akwaghmare The share of people in an age group who are either working or looking for work is known as the labour force participation rate (LFPR). The LFPR is an important indicator to measure whether most adults are in the productive economy. In India, female labour force participation is far lower than that of males at every age. Across the world, labour force participation rises with age once adults complete their education, and then falls in old age. This is certainly the case for men in India. Men's LFPR increases sharply from the teenage years until the mid-twenties, and remains at nearly 100% during the prime working years. It then reduces slowly until the age of 60, and sharply after that.  The likelihood of an Indian woman being in the labour force (two in five) is half of that of an Indian man (four in five). In India's Periodic Labour Force Survey, women report household duties, including child care and chores, as the main reason for staying out of the labour force. But the gap between male and female labour force participation rates is widest in their twenties and thirties. The main reason for this demographic blip in women's labour participation is child-bearing and child-rearing. About 70% of births in India are now to women in their twenties. #Jobs #Women #Employment #Work #India #DataForIndia

How do meat consumption patterns vary among social and religious groups across India? Read @nileena_suresh's analysis to find out. dataforindia.com/meat-consumpti…

Meat is widely consumed in India. Four in five Indians aged 15-49 consumed some form of animal-sourced protein (excluding dairy) as of 2021. The National Family Health Survey asks a representative sample of respondents if they have ever consumed any of the three broad categories of animal proteins - eggs, fish and chicken/meat, and their frequency of consumption. Eggs are the most commonly consumed animal protein (by 78% of Indians), followed by chicken/meat (75%) and fish (72%). The consumption of meat is more common among lower-income groups. Nearly nine out of ten people belonging to the poorest 20% of India's population eat meat, compared to about seven out of ten among the wealthiest 20%. This difference is larger among women, especially in rural areas. Among women belonging to the wealthiest group in rural India, just over half eat meat, whereas three-quarters of men do. Among meat-eaters, the frequency of consumption is high. Most people who eat meat consume it at least once a week. Both the share of meat consumers and their frequency of consumption are higher in urban areas. #Meat #Chicken #Health #India #DataForIndia

The total annual rainfall has been stable over time, but this apparent stability masks significant year-on-year fluctuations. Read Juhi Chatterjee’s analysis to learn more about India’s seasonal rainfall. dataforindia.com/seasonal-rainf…

India's pre-monsoon and winter seasons have seen greater changes in rainfall over time than its monsoon seasons. India's rainfall is classified into four seasons according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The south-west monsoon (June-September) dominates the country's hydro-climate, delivering approximately 75-80% of annual rainfall. The north-east monsoon (October-December), also termed the post-monsoon season, provides a crucial secondary rainfall period, particularly for southern states. Additional precipitation arrives through winter rainfall (January-February), and pre-monsoon rainfall (March-May). Over the last 120 years, the pre-monsoon season is the only period that has seen an increase, with annual rainfall rising by approximately 5.8% (between 1901-2024). This increase aligns with recent IMD observations of heavier May rains, including the highest all-India average monthly rainfall for May in 2025. Winter shows the most pronounced decline in relative terms with rainfall decreasing by about 25% (over 1901-2024), indicating a substantial weakening. #Rain #Rainfall #Monsoon #Climate #India #DataForIndia

How do emigration patterns differ between Indian men and women? Read @nileena_suresh’s analysis to find out. dataforindia.com/international-…

India has the world's largest emigrant population, accounting for 6% of all international migrants globally as of 2024. According to the United Nations, an international migrant is someone who has moved across an international border and changed their usual place of residence, typically living in the new country continuously for at least 12 months. Out-migrants are also known as emigrants. The international migrant stock, as measured by the UN, refers to the total number of international migrants in a country at a given time. Between 1990 and 2024, the migrant stock of Indian origin nearly tripled from 6.5 million to 18.5 million. A significant portion of India's out-migrant population is the historical legacy of the Partition of 1947. Pakistan is still home to 1.6 million Indian-born individuals, making up nearly 9% of all Indians living abroad in 2024. However, as the Partition generation ages and dies out, this number has been declining. Outside of Pakistan, Indian emigration remains concentrated within Asia, particularly in West Asia, where half of all Indian emigrants live. Additionally, one-quarter of Indian out-migrants live in North America, a share that has grown over time, as has emigration to Australia and New Zealand. #Migration #Immigration #Emigration #India #DataForIndia

At Data For India, we spend a lot of time on big questions about India: female employment, household spending, fertility, health, the economy, and more. These often require deep research, large datasets, and long-form insights. But sometimes, you just want a clear answer to one sharp question: When will India’s population stop growing? What makes up India’s GDP? Which diseases affect Indians the most today? We are now ready to answer those questions for you. Introducing Data Bytes: one chart about India every week, and the story behind the data. Every Monday, starting 6th July, we will answer one simple question you might have about India, through one easy-to-understand chart and the context you need to interpret and use the information. You can already read the first three Data Bytes on our platform, and subscribe now to get the next one in your inbox: dataforindia.com/data-bytes/?ut… If there is a question about India you would like us to answer, write to us at info@dataforindia.com.

While this slowing down of population growth is going on across the country, it is happening at two distinct speeds across the states. Read @Rukmini’s analysis to learn more: dataforindia.com/population-gro…

With over 1.4 billion people, India now has more people than any other country, having surpassed China's population in 2023. But the country’s population growth has been gradually slowing down. There was certainly a time when India's population was growing very fast. In the three decades after Independence, India's population had doubled. But from the 1980s, population growth began to slow down. India's population growth rate is estimated to fall below the world average over the next few years and the gap is expected to grow. Three processes affect population levels and trends - the number of children born, the number of people who die and the long-term movements of people. The levels of international migration - both into and out of India - are too small in relative terms to affect India's population currently. However, important changes in the first two processes have had an impact on India's slowing population growth. Population projections for countries of the world come from the United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects. #Population #Census #PopulationData #India #DataForIndia

How does informality in India compare to other countries? Read @akwaghmare’s piece to find out. dataforindia.com/informal-secto…

India's informal sector employs a majority of its workforce, and has remained large over the last two decades despite economic growth. One way to define informality is by dividing the enterprises that hire people into formal and informal enterprises based on their production characteristics. In Indian labour statistics, enterprises are categorised in three ways; first - the formal sector which includes government and private enterprises recognised by various laws, second - the informal sector that largely covers enterprises run by households, which are not recognised by laws and do not maintain accounts, and finally a residual or 'other' sector (including households working in farming, households who produce only for their own use, cooperatives and trusts) that is seen as being outside the definition of formal and informal sectors. Applying this definition to India's labour data, about 12% of Indian workers are employed in the formal sector. Nearly half of India's workforce is engaged in the informal sector. The share of employment in farming, cooperatives, trusts and other enterprises is 40%. This means that 88% of India's workforce is employed outside the formal sector. Employment outside the formal sector is more common in rural areas. More than nine in ten rural workers are employed outside the formal sector as against eight in ten urban workers.   #Jobs #InformalSector #Work #India #DataForIndia

What do these unorganised manufacturing units in India produce? Read @akwaghmare's piece to find out: dataforindia.com/unorganised-ma…

Manufacturing activity in India takes place in two broad ways: organised manufacturing that happens in factories, and unorganised manufacturing which is typically at a small scale and family-run. There are 20 million unorganised manufacturing establishments in India as of 2024. In comparison, there are only about 200,000 factories. The majority of India's manufacturing workforce is in the unorganised sector. Most of these unorganised units are very small. More than four in five establishments in unorganised manufacturing are run by a single person, and only one in five have at least one additional paid, hired worker. Most unorganised manufacturing establishments in India are run from within the owner's own house. Another quarter of unorganised manufacturing units are operated outside the house from permanent structures, while a small proportion of such establishments operate without any fixed location. #Manufacturing #Factories #Employment #Economy #India #DataForIndia

However, there are differences in the type of employment for male and female custom tailors. Read @nileena_suresh’s piece to find out: dataforindia.com/custom-tailori…

The share of textile and apparel within India’s manufacturing sector has grown significantly. One economic activity within these sectors in particular has seen a sharp rise - custom tailoring. Custom tailoring refers to tailoring work done for customers or businesses, and not for household self-use, where cloth fabric is transformed into finished garments.  In 2005, there were less than 4 million custom tailors in India, and they made up just 7% of all manufacturing jobs. By 2024, there were 12 million custom tailors, and their share in the manufacturing workforce had climbed to 17%.  About one in six manufacturing workers in India are now custom tailors. Over the last few years in particular, custom tailoring has played an outsize role in the growth of the manufacturing workforce. Between 2018 and 2024, nearly two out of every five new manufacturing jobs in India were of custom tailors. This growth in custom tailoring has been primarily led by women. Women now form the majority of this sector, with 8.5 million female tailors out of 12 million custom tailors in the country. In fact, one in three women working in manufacturing is a custom tailor. #Manufacturing #Work #Employment #India #DataForIndia