The Influence of Patriarchy on India's Political Economy • Teachers Institute

India is one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies, yet nearly half its population contributes far less to the formal economy than their potential allows. This is not an accident of talent or ambition – it is the direct result of a patriarchal system that shapes both political structures and economic arrangements in ways that consistently sideline women. Understanding how patriarchy operates within India’s political economy is essential, not just as an academic exercise, but because the costs of this exclusion are measurable, staggering, and borne by the entire nation.

What is the political economy lens?
Women’s marginalisation in political structures
The Women’s Reservation Bill: promise and delay
The economic exclusion of women
The gender pay gap
The invisible economy: unpaid care work
Why policies have fallen short
Caste, class, and compounded disadvantage
What structural change looks like

What is the political economy lens?

The term political economy refers to the way political systems and economic systems interact to shape a country’s development. In India, this interaction has been deeply gendered. Patriarchal structures – rooted in customs around inheritance, caste, kinship, and family authority – have historically concentrated decision-making power in the hands of men, both in government and in households. This has consequences that ripple directly into how resources are allocated, who gets to participate in paid work, and whose labour is recognised and rewarded.

Women’s marginalisation in political structures

For a political economy to serve all its citizens, those citizens must have a voice in shaping policy. In India, women’s representation in legislative bodies remains disproportionately low despite the country being the world’s largest democracy. The 2024 Lok Sabha elections elected just 74 women out of 543 seats – that is only 13.6% of Parliament, a figure that actually fell from the 14.4% recorded in 2019. At the state level, the picture is even more stark, with women averaging only 9% representation across state legislative assemblies.

Globally, women hold an average of 26.9% of seats in national parliaments, making India’s numbers look modest at best. Countries like Rwanda (61.3%) and Sweden (47%) demonstrate that high female legislative participation is achievable through deliberate policy. India, by contrast, ranked 143rd among 185 countries on this metric even before the 2024 dip. This underrepresentation is not a trivial statistical gap – it directly determines whose concerns get translated into law and whose remain unaddressed.

The Women’s Reservation Bill: promise and delay

In 2023, Parliament passed the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam (Constitution 106th Amendment Act), which mandates one-third reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. This is a significant legislative milestone. However, its implementation is tied to the next delimitation exercise, expected around 2029, meaning the reform’s benefits are effectively deferred. Critics have noted that this delay reflects resistance from male-dominated party leaderships reluctant to cede power. The contrast is telling: while over 46% of elected representatives in Panchayati Raj Institutions are women – a success achieved through the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments – this grassroots progress has not translated upward into national-level parity.

The economic exclusion of women

India’s economic growth story has a significant blind spot: women. Women contribute just 18% to India’s GDP, despite representing nearly half the population. Female workforce participation hovers around 24%, well below the global average of 47%. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) reports that just 9% of urban working-age women are employed or seeking work, compared to 67% of men.

Patriarchal assumptions are central to this exclusion. In countless Indian households, women’s choices around education, employment, and career advancement remain subject to the approval or control of family members. The cultural scripting of gender – which positions women primarily as caregivers and homemakers – limits mobility, narrows aspirations, and makes the formal labour market feel inaccessible or socially impermissible for large numbers of women.

The gender pay gap

For women who do enter the workforce, patriarchal assumptions continue to harm them economically. The World Economic Forum reports that Indian women earn significantly less than men for equivalent work, a disparity driven by gender-based discrimination, limited access to senior roles, and biases embedded in hiring and promotion decisions. This pay gap is not simply the result of women choosing lower-paying sectors – it reflects a systemic undervaluing of women’s labour rooted in the same patriarchal logic that defines women’s primary role as domestic rather than economic. Researchers applying Sylvia Walby’s theory of patriarchy to the Indian context have shown that multiple systemic barriers – social, educational, legal, and economic – reinforce one another within this structure, making the pay gap a symptom of a much deeper problem.

The invisible economy: unpaid care work

Perhaps the most revealing dimension of patriarchy’s influence on India’s political economy is the issue of unpaid care work. The domestic labour that women perform – cooking, cleaning, childcare, elder care, managing the household – is economically productive but entirely invisible in official accounts.

An Oxford report found that Indian women and girls perform approximately 3.26 billion hours of unpaid care work every day – a contribution valued at a minimum of ₹19 trillion annually. Government estimates place the value of women’s unpaid domestic and care work at 15-17% of GDP, yet this labour receives neither pay nor social protection. The National Statistical Office’s Time-Use Survey reveals that Indian women spend an average of 299 minutes per day on unpaid domestic work – more than three times the time spent by men.

A gender-disaggregated analysis of India’s Time-Use Survey data found that women spend eight times more hours on unpaid care work than men, a pattern consistent across educational levels and employment status. Critically, even women who earn their own incomes are not spending any less time on unpaid domestic work. This is the “double burden” – women are expected to fully participate in both the paid economy and the unpaid domestic economy simultaneously, and when the weight becomes unmanageable, it is paid work that they exit.

Why policies have fallen short

India has introduced numerous schemes aimed at improving women’s economic participation – Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, MUDRA loans for women entrepreneurs, the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, and others. These initiatives reflect genuine policy intent. However, they consistently fail to address the structural root: patriarchal norms continue to dominate public policy despite official orientation toward gender equality. Schemes that provide cash or skills training do not automatically redistribute the domestic labour that prevents women from utilising those opportunities.

A particularly sharp example is found in India’s frontline health workforce. India’s 2.5 million Anganwadi Workers, ANMs, and ASHAs – women whose COVID-19 contributions were recognised by the WHO – continue to be classified as “volunteers” rather than employees in several states, meaning they receive neither fixed salaries nor social security benefits. Their economic contributions are consequently absent from GDP calculations. This is not an oversight; it reflects a political economy that has been built on the assumption that women’s care work – whether at home or in the community – can be freely appropriated.

Public spending on care infrastructure – pre-primary education, childcare, and long-term care services – stands at less than 1% of GDP. Yet evidence from the Women’s Budget Group indicates that investing just 2% of GDP in health and care infrastructure could generate 11 million additional jobs, with nearly a third going to women. The economic case for investing in care is overwhelming, but it requires policymakers to first recognise that women’s labour – paid and unpaid – is foundational to the economy.

Caste, class, and compounded disadvantage

Patriarchy in India does not operate uniformly. For Dalit women and women from lower-caste and lower-class backgrounds, the intersection of caste hierarchy and gender hierarchy creates compounded vulnerability that upper-caste feminist frameworks have historically failed to adequately address. Patriarchy operates differently across class and caste lines – restricting an upper-caste woman’s career advancement, while restricting a Dalit woman’s access to basic safety, education, and legal protection simultaneously. Any analysis of patriarchy’s effect on India’s political economy must account for these layered inequalities, because policy solutions that work for one group may leave others further behind.

What structural change looks like

Challenging patriarchy in India’s political economy requires action on multiple fronts simultaneously. At the political level, genuinely implementing the Women’s Reservation Bill – rather than indefinitely deferring it – is essential. Evidence from Panchayati Raj Institutions shows that women representatives consistently prioritise health, education, and welfare outcomes, with lower corruption rates in their constituencies. Expanding this influence into national policymaking would change the economic priorities built into the budget itself.

At the economic level, universal social protection, affordable childcare infrastructure, family-friendly work arrangements, and formalisation of care workers are proven levers for increasing women’s workforce participation. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that closing the gender gap in the workforce could add $770 billion to India’s GDP – a figure larger than most fiscal stimulus packages. Exclusion, in other words, is not a neutral default; it is a costly economic choice.

At the cultural level, patriarchal norms must be explicitly challenged in schools, workplaces, and media. Global evidence consistently shows that when men participate actively in daily caregiving, women’s employment becomes more sustained and households report better stability – but these shifts require deliberate norm-change, not just good intentions. Kerala’s Kudumbashree programme and Maharashtra’s self-help group networks offer scalable models of treating women as full economic agents, rather than as beneficiaries of charity.

The core shift required is a recognition that women’s contributions – in the formal economy, in care work, in politics, and in communities – are not supplementary. They are foundational. A political economy built on the systematic exclusion and undervaluation of women’s work is not just unjust; it is structurally inefficient, and the data makes that case clearly.

What do you think? If patriarchy operates partly through economic structures – wages, care work, political exclusion – rather than just individual attitudes, what would it take for India’s policymakers to design budgets and legislation that genuinely account for women’s full economic contribution? And should recognising and compensating unpaid care work be treated as a gender issue, an economic issue, or both – and does that distinction actually matter for how policy is designed?

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Table of Contents

What is the political economy lens? 🔗

Women’s marginalisation in political structures 🔗

The Women’s Reservation Bill: promise and delay 🔗

The economic exclusion of women 🔗

The gender pay gap 🔗

The invisible economy: unpaid care work 🔗

Why policies have fallen short 🔗

Caste, class, and compounded disadvantage 🔗

What structural change looks like 🔗