Millions of women college graduates in tier 2 and tier 3 towns are forced to give up on their aspirations way before they get to join the workforce. In India, while more women are finishing high school and graduating from colleges than ever before, they are not entering the workforce at proportional rates. The enrollment of girls in higher education increased from 39% to 46% from 2007 to 2014, and this continues to increase. However, female participation in India’s labour force declined to a low of 27% in 2014 from 34% in 1999. *
Ravali and Agneta interviewed over a hundred women from small towns like Tumkur, Madurai, Hassan, Nellore, Coimbatore, Dharwad, and Tirunelveli, and they learned that women graduates are not entering the workforce because of 4 main reasons:
Statistics speak for themselves.
Compared to 76.0% of men(as of 2020)
20.3%
of women aged 15 and older participate in the labor force
Equal participation of women in the workforce will increase India’s GDP by
27%
Esther enables women college graduates from tier 2 and tier 3 towns to bridge their ‘job-readiness gap’ and streamline their job discovery process through leveraging online platforms and use of digital tools. With the onset of online learning with COVID-19, we have an unprecedented opportunity to reach women college students fromperi-urban areas, as thousands of women are coming online with owning/ gaining access to smartphones for the first time in their lives.