THE ECONOMIC ARTICLE

Indian Peoples Spend Most of there time on Non-productive Work  It is easy to say that many Indians “waste time” on non-productive work. But that phrase can be misleading. A large share of what looks “non-productive” is actually unpaid household labour, caregiving, waiting for work, commuting, fetching services, managing informal livelihoods, and coping with weak public infrastructure. In other words, the problem is not simply laziness or bad habits. The deeper problem is that millions of people spend too much of their day on activities that do not build income, skills, assets, or long-term economic security. This time drain falls hardest on poor households, women, children, informal workers, and people with low education.  India’s time problem is therefore not only a cultural issue; it is an economic issue. When women spend hours in unpaid care work, when children spend time on chores instead of learning, when informal workers spend long hours in low-paid and insecure activit...

Gender Inequality in India: life as a Women, life as a Man India’s gender story is not a simple tale of women as victims and men as winners. It is more complicated than that. A girl can be denied value before she is even born, restricted in childhood, watched in adolescence, underpaid in adulthood, and overburdened in marriage and motherhood. At the same time, a boy may grow up with more freedom and authority, but also with the crushing expectation that he must earn, endure, and never appear weak. Gender inequality in India is therefore not just about “who suffers more”; it is about how society distributes freedom, care, risk, opportunity, and pressure across the life course. The system privileges men in many public ways, while also trapping them inside rigid roles. Women gain certain strengths and advantages too, but these often emerge despite the system, not because the system is fair.  A useful starting point is the data. India ranked 131 out of 148 countries in the World Econo...

India’s Workforce in Manufacturing Sector  Declining Over the Last Decade India’s manufacturing story over the last decade is not one of a simple collapse, but of a deeper failure: the sector has not grown into the mass employer the country needed. Large registered factories have added jobs, but manufacturing as a share of total employment has stayed flat or edged down, and the biggest damage has been felt in small, unincorporated, labour-intensive units that traditionally absorbed millions of workers. In a country that still needs non-farm jobs at scale, that is a serious structural weakness. A quick look at the numbers shows why the concern persists. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation reported that manufacturing accounted for 11.6% of total employment in 2021-22 , 11.4% in 2022-23 and 11.4% again in 2023-24. The ILO similarly says manufacturing employment has been broadly stagnant at about 12-14% over a much longer period. And a survey-based analysis by...

Why the Informal Sector Dominates 82% of India’s Workforce? The Real India of Work Is Still Informal India is often described as one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies. It has digital payments at scale, a booming startup culture, expanding highways, rising exports, and a young labour force. Yet beneath this modern image lies an older and more stubborn reality: most Indians still work outside the formal economy. They sell, transport, stitch, cook, clean, build, repair, deliver, drive, farm, and survive without secure contracts, social security, paid leave, or reliable legal protection. The informal sector is not a side story in India’s labour market; it is the main story.  The scale is striking. The India Employment Report 2024 notes that nearly 82% of India’s workforce engages in the informal sector , and nearly 90% is informally employed . That means formality remains the exception, not the norm. This is why any serious discussion about jobs, wages, inequality, poverty...