AUTHORS:

Harshdeep Kaur, Anand Raj

Despite progress in education and health, India continues to have one of the world’s lowest rates of women participating in paid work. This paper explores how women’s economic engagement influences their bargaining power within households and how social and structural barriers shape that relationship. The study is grounded in the Naila Kabeer (1999) framework of “resources–agency–achievements” and builds on a flow of concerns: limited participation, safety and mobility restrictions, earnings without decision-making control, concentration in informal work, the invisibility of unpaid care, restrictions despite education, and the resulting economic loss for the nation. Using secondary data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), and the Time-Use Survey (2019), supplemented with international reports and recent literature, the paper examines multiple hypotheses, including: (1) whether women’s income contributions strengthen their role in household decision-making; (2) the influence of job type and social respectability on bargaining outcomes; (3) the impact of unpaid care work on participation and agency; and (4–7) the roles of household wealth, social identity, demographic factors, and the exclusion of educated women in shaping bargaining power and national growth potential. A descriptive and analytical design is applied, combining statistical trends with contextual interpretation. Findings suggest that while income is important, social norms, job quality, and caregiving burdens critically mediate women’s bargaining power. The study concludes that enhancing women’s economic agency is not only central to gender equity but also to India’s long-term growth, as undervaluing women’s work leads to both social and economic costs.