The 'Women In Labour' Podcast: Economist Devika Kher on women being key to India's economic growth

Since 2005, the percentage of Indian women in paid work has dropped from 35 per cent to less than 24 per cent, but no one is talking about why. Till we did, and ‘ Women in Labour ’ was born (pun intended).

A comedic take on a serious issue, the ‘Women In Labour’ podcast explores topics related to women, work, family, power, and everything in between. Why do Indian women do the most unpaid work in the world? What’s stopping us from finding our inner bosses? Why do we preface our work emails with “I was just wondering…”? And the big one — what’s keeping us away from India’s workplaces?

We — Aditi Mittal and Christina MacGillivray — converse with a roster of guests on our podcast in an attempt to answer these questions.

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Episode 14 | ‘The Economics of the Issue’

If India is to continue to grow its economy, it needs to involve the country’s women, according to economist and public policy analyst Devika Kher. You see, ambitious growth just isn’t possible with half the population at home.

In this episode, Kher breaks down the u-curve, one of the most important theories to understand the drop in women’s participation in the workforce, in less than 30 minutes.

Devika Kher is currently a Master of Public Policy candidate at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy (Class of ‘21). Before joining Harris, she worked at The Takshashila Institution, an independent policy think tank in Bangalore, India for five years. Her work focuses on studying the interaction between labour and urban governance challenges. Devika has worked extensively on the declining female labour employment in India and urban governance challenges within developing countries. Devika has been a regular contributor to renowned national dailies, a contributing author for multiple books, and has co-authored papers on public expenditure on health in India.

Listen to the episode here.