Why India Must Make Her Hustle Count

“What you don’t count doesn’t count.” Caroline Criado Perez’s ‘Invisible Women’ laid bare a world shaped by data that routinely leaves women out. Nowhere is this more apparent than in India, where millions of women perform essential work every day: unpaid, unseen, and unaccounted for.

These women wake up at dawn, prepare meals, send children to school, care for the elderly, and manage homes with clockwork precision. This invisible labour is the backbone of India’s real economy.

According to the government’s latest Time Use Survey, women spend nearly 39% of their time on unpaid domestic work and caregiving; for men the share is 5%. Apart from social barriers, this ‘time poverty’ leaves little space for formal employment or enterprise, limiting both economic autonomy and national growth.

Yet, in my stint with a social enterprise that supports women microentrepreneurs through simple, mobile-first digital tools, I have seen the desire to break out of this cycle. In small towns and villages, women, many of them semi-literate, proudly run their home-based businesses even as they go about their usual domestic chores. 

“Har shaam main app par apni aamdani dekhti hoon, aur kharch bhi (Every evening, I check my day’s earning and expenses),” said Sheela Devi, 40, who runs a tiny kirana store in the suburbs of Ludhiana to support her three children. She could read and write, but double-entry accounting was totally another cup of tea when she set up her shop after losing her husband, a migrant worker from Bihar. Sheela had earlier only tended to the home and family. It was sheer grit that drove her to learn digital bookkeeping, as she knew it was vital to understand the numbers to survive and thrive. With her new-found confidence, Sheela is now eyeing formal credit to grow her enterprise.

But these stories remain rare. India’s female labour force participation rate , while improving, still hovers at just 41.7% – one of the lowest rates among its South Asian peers, and far below the potential of a country aiming to become a developed economy by 2047. India is on track to become the world’s fourth-largest economy, pipping Japan. It could even claim the third spot in a couple of years by surpassing Germany. But that growth will remain incomplete, and unsustainable, without the full inclusion of women in the labour force.

The economic cost of excluding women is huge. Christine Lagarde, as the chief of the International Monetary Fund, had in 2015 pointed out that India’s GDP could potentially grow by 27% if there was gender parity in the workforce. Quoting Amartya Sen, she said: “Women are increasingly seen, by men as well as women, as active agents of change - the dynamic promoters of social transformations that can alter the lives of both women and men.”

India’s $30 trillion GDP dream by 2047 may fall short because 145 million women could be missing from the workforce. A Bain & Company and Magic Bus report warns that unless we grow the female labour force to 400 million, instead of the projected 255 million, the economic math simply won’t add up. The country’s goal isn’t reachable without addressing the full spectrum of barriers: social, cultural, economic, and digital.

While home-based entrepreneurship, as opposed to formal jobs, remains a practical option for financial independence, one of the most pressing hurdles is access to finance. India has taken big strides in fintech and digital banking, but formal credit remains out of reach for most women entrepreneurs. Nearly 90% of women-led small enterprises are informal, unregistered and outside government support, so they often go uncounted in the economy. Without formal recognition and working capital, these businesses struggle to grow beyond survival.

Just as important is creating work that honours women’s traditional caregiving responsibilities. For many, full-time jobs are not a practical option but flexible, part-time, or project-based roles, especially those supported by digital platforms, can be game-changers. The country needs huge investment in skills training tied to livelihoods, meaningful mentorship, and clear pathways for first-time workers, especially women making the shift from unpaid care to paid employment.

The momentum is palpable, but clearly not enough. NITI Aayog’s report, ‘Decoding Government Support to Women Entrepreneurs’, shows how targeted policy interventions have created a foundation. Yet the uptake is often limited to urban, educated women. At the grassroots, women still struggle with application complexity, lack of digital literacy, and social gatekeeping.

That’s where digital inclusion becomes not just a convenience, but a catalyst. A report by Nasscom Foundation and LEAD at Krea University shows how platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook are enabling women to sell products, build networks, and grow incomes. But it also flags persistent barriers: poor smartphone access, gendered tech hesitancy, and low confidence. With the right digital skilling, these women can leapfrog traditional barriers to market entry.

The big heartening aspect here is the transmission of confidence – when one woman succeeds in her endeavour, she becomes a local role model. Women who once hesitated to use a mobile app goes on to lead peer groups, train others, and influence local decisions – the social multiplier effect of women’s economic empowerment. It boosts education outcomes, health metrics, aspirations for the next generation, and also of the broader community.

This isn’t just a story about gender parity. It is a matter of economic strategy. Empowering women directly supports several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: from achieving gender equality and decent work to reducing inequality. India cannot hope to meet its growth goals without taking along the other half of its population on the journey.

The women aren’t waiting for policy fixes. They’re learning, skilling, and hustling; quietly transforming their own lives and their communities. The real challenge now lies with the system: to build an environment that offers women the recognition, remuneration, and opportunities they have long deserved, and are more than ready to seize.